Early introduction of complementary feeding in infants: Comparing adolescent and adult mothers

Abstract

Objective: C heck for associations between maternal age and the reasons provided by mothers for the early introduction of complementary feeding in infants at 30, 90 and 180 days after birth. Methods: This is a prospective cohort study, conducted in a maternity hospital of the Brazilian Unifi ed Health System (SUS) located in a medium-sized city of the State of São Paulo, Brazil. The sample was made up of 545 participants - 103 adolescents and 442 adults in the postpartum period. Data were collected from October 2016 to October 2017, face to face, at the maternity hospital and via telephone 30, 90 and 180 days after birth, and analyzed using the Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. Results: Thirty days after birth, the adolescent mothers mentioned recommendations of other people for introducing tea into the baby's diet; on the other hand, the adult mothers mentioned reasons related to the child (p=0.001). Ninety days after birth, the adolescent mothers reported recommendations for the introduction of water and tea from other people and the adult mothers reported reasons related to the child (p=0.004 for water and p<0.001 for tea). And 180 days after birth, the adolescent and adult mothers reported reasons related to their own choice for the introduction of another type of milk (p = 0.03). Conclusion: Adolescent and adult mothers presented different reasons for introducing tea 30 days after birth, for introducing water and tea 90 after birth, and presented the same reason for introducing another type of milk 180 days after birth.