The Interaction and Impact of Social Support and Father Absence on Breastfeeding.

Abstract

Background: Behaviors related to early childhood nutrition are influenced by a mother's social environment. In many low- and middle-income countries, breastfeeding rates have steadily declined. At the same time, many communities have a history of domestic or international migration that affects the family support systems for women and children remaining in these communities. While social support has been shown to be important to health behaviors conducive to maternal and child health, scant research examines whether social support moderates the impact of an absent father on breastfeeding. Objective: We aim to assess the relationship between father absence and breastfeeding duration and test whether social support moderates the impact of father absence on breastfeeding duration. Methods: We use data from the Social Networks and Health Information Survey (n = 292), a random household survey conducted in a municipality in Guanajuato, Mexico, to estimate Poisson regression models of breastfeeding duration. Results: In multivariate models, an absent father is negatively associated with breastfeeding, whereas social support is positively associated. A significant and positive interaction between father absence and social support suggests that at high levels of support, breastfeeding duration for women with absent fathers does not appear to be meaningfully different from women with present fathers. This suggests that receiving high levels of social support during pregnancy may mitigate the absence of the child's father. Conclusions: Social support interventions for mothers of infants should target mothers and children in households without a father. More research should also be directed at understanding how social support processes during pregnancy can affect breastfeeding in other low- and middle-income countries with high rates of emigration.