Why Mothers Stop Breastfeeding: Mothers' Self-reported Reasons for Stopping During the First Year

Our goal was to determine why women stop breastfeeding at various times during their infant's first year. We analyzed self-reported data from 1323 mothers who participated in the Infant Feeding Practice Study II. Mail questionnaires were sent to mothers approximately 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 1/2...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pediatrics (Evanston) 2008-10, Vol.122 (Supplement), p.S69-S76
Main Authors: Li, Ruowei, Fein, Sara B, Chen, Jian, Grummer-Strawn, Laurence M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Babies
Breast Feeding - statistics & numerical data
Breastfeeding & lactation
Choice Behavior
Discriminant analysis
Female
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Maternal Behavior
Mother-Child Relations
Mothers
Pediatrics
Regression analysis
Studies
United States - epidemiology
Weaning
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Summary:Our goal was to determine why women stop breastfeeding at various times during their infant's first year. We analyzed self-reported data from 1323 mothers who participated in the Infant Feeding Practice Study II. Mail questionnaires were sent to mothers approximately 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 1/2, and 12 months after their child's birth, in which they were asked to rate the importance of 32 reasons for their decision to stop breastfeeding. We applied exploratory factorial analysis to extract meaningful constructs of mothers' responses to the 32 reasons. We then compared the percentages of mothers who indicated that each reason was important in their decision to stop breastfeeding among various weaning ages and used multiple logistic regression models to examine sociodemographic differences in the most frequently cited reasons for stopping breastfeeding. The perception that their infant was not satisfied by breast milk alone was cited consistently as 1 of the top 3 reasons in the mothers' decision to stop breastfeeding regardless of weaning age (43.5%-55.6%) and was even more frequent among Hispanic mothers and mothers with annual household incomes of
ISSN:0031-4005
1098-4275
DOI:10.1542/peds.2008-1315i