Region of birth, income and breastfeeding in a Swedish county

Abstract

To study the relationship between maternal region of birth, disposable income and breastfeeding initiation and duration. The study population consisted of 12,197 term born, singleton infants, born 1997-2001 in the county of Uppsala. Data on breastfeeding at 1 week, 6 months and 12 months were collected from the register of statistics of the Child Health Care Unit in Uppsala and socioeconomic indicators from Swedish national registers. Multivariate analysis was conducted using Cox regression. No influence of disposable income or region of birth on breastfeeding initiation was observed. Breastfeeding rates at 6 months were lower for mothers with disposable incomes in quartile 1-3 compared with mothers with the highest incomes in quartile 4 (hazard ratios (HRs) 0.88-0.90, adjusted HRs 0.92). The breastfeeding rates at 12 months were higher for mothers born in all regions compared with mothers born in Sweden (HRs 1.25-2.45, adjusted HRs 1.20-2.14). The findings in the present study show that disposable income is a strong predictor for breastfeeding at 6 months in the Swedish context. Region of birth of the mother predicted long term breastfeeding, > or =12 months. This calls for professionals in the maternity and child health care to pay extra attention to breastfeeding in low-income mothers in all ethnic groups.