Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Breastfeeding has a great contribution on growing a healthy baby. The nutritional value of breast milk is superior than all artificial food for the development of new-born babies. Besides the nutritional value of breast milk, the duration of breastfeeding is of great importance. WHO and UNICEF suggest the exclusive breastfeeding from birth through the first 6 months and continue breastfeeding up to two years. In this study, it is aimed to determine the factors that effect the duration of breasfeeding.

METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study. The study is conducted in Gazimagusa, Turkish Republic of Northren Cyprus between June-August 2013. 187 mother who volunteered to participate were included in this study. Survival analysis was used to determine the factors that affect the duration of breastfeeding.

RESULTS

When the duration of full breastfeeding is analyzed, duration of exclusive breastfeeding, family type, maternal smoking / alcohol use and starting solid food were found as important risk factors that affect the duration of full breastfeeding at a 95% confidence level. It is also observed that the mother’s health status, gesrarional term, type of birth, the family's

place of residence, monthly income, mother's education level, the baby's birth weight, baby's first breastfeeding time, usage of pacifier, additional liquid food and infant formula have affects on the duration of exclusive breastfeeding.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

As the logistic regression model is generally used for modelling the breastfeeding, in this study breasfeeding duration is taken into consideration and analyzed by survival analysis methods. Therefore a more appropriate and informative model is obtained.