Demographic and Psychosocial Correlates of Exclusive Breastfeeding Duration in Indonesia

Abstract

Objectives: In Indonesia, exclusive breastfeeding practices are followed by only 46% of mothers, resulting in USD $118 million in health costs annually [2, 3]. Though previous studies have addressed demographic factors related to breastfeeding [5, 6], few studies have examined the relationship between exclusive breastfeeding duration and mother's psychosocial characteristics [5, 6, 7, 8]. Our study used the Indonesian Family Life Survey 5 th Wave survey (IFLS5) from 2014-2015 to evaluate if demographic and psychosocial factors are associated with exclusive breastfeeding duration among Indonesian mothers [7, 8]. Methods: Our study included mothers (n = 3024) with children <8 years of age. We stratified breastfeeding duration (0, 1-3, 4-6 and >6 months) according to WHO standards [1]. We described individual mother's characteristics including age, education level, socioeconomic status, and psychosocial factors by these breastfeeding categories. We developed binary breastfeeding duration variables by those never breastfeeding or breastfeeding ≤4 months to perform binary logistic regression models. Finally, we examined differences between categories of breastfeeding duration using multinomial logistic models. Results: Mothers with primary and secondary education had lower odds of having breastfed exclusively for ≤4 months (OR 0.43 [0.30, 0.60] and 0.64 [0.46, 0.89]), respectively, compared to mothers with higher education. Mothers with primary education were also 2.21 [1.05, 4.50] times as likely to have never breastfed relative to breastfeeding exclusively for 4-6 months compared to highly-educated mothers. Compared to younger mothers (30-39 years), older mothers (40 + years) had a greater likelihood of never exclusively breastfeeding, relative to exclusively breastfeeding for 4-6 months (RR 3.28 [1.80, 5.96]). Finally, mothers who had lower perceived life-satisfaction had a lower likelihood (RR 0.60 [0.45, 0.77]) of exclusively breastfeeding >6 months compared to mothers with very high satisfaction. Conclusions: Our results can help to inform policy makers about disparities in exclusive breastfeeding practices to better tailor services to underserved mothers within Indonesia.