Abstract
Objectives: To compare official breastfeeding (BF) data with those obtained by interviews conducted during regular vaccination visits.
Subjects and method: A pilot descriptive study with convenience sampling was conducted by interviewing guardians of children attending vaccination in four Primary Care Centres in south Santiago. BF prevalence indicators were calculated and stratified by age and education of mothers. A comparison was made between the results and the official ones reported by each Centre. Chi-squared (X2) was calculated to evaluate differences (P < .05)
Results: A total of 1990 cases were analysed, in which exclusive BF prevalence was 43.4%, 34.2% and 8.8%, at 2, 4, and 6 months, respectively. At the sixth month, official data (41%) was significantly higher (P < .001). Mothers with less than 12 years of schooling have a lower prevalence of exclusive BF at the 4th month than those with higher education (28.4% vs 37.8%, respectively, P < .05).
Conclusions: Even considering the small size of the sample studied, exclusive BF prevalence obtained is surprisingly lower than official reported data. That difference might be explained by: a) children brought to vaccinations are roughly two fold the number brought to well-child clinics and, b) potential bias in official data obtained by staff in charge of promotion and education on BF practices, which could distort the results. Further studies are needed to improve the methodology for collecting and analysis BF data.
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