Prevalence and determinants of the use of pacifiers and feedingbottle: A study in Southwest Bahia

Abstract

Objectives: to assess the use of pacifier and feedingbottle and their determinants in children from a municipality of Southwest Bahia. Methods: a cross-sectional study was performed with 354 children younger than 12 months old. The event was categorized in: exclusive use of pacifier, exclusive use of feeding bottle,use of pacifier and feeding bottle, and not use any of them. Multinomial analysis with logistic regression was applied, and those who did not use any artificial nipples were theref-erence variable. Results: it was observed that 11.9% of the children exclusively used pacifiers, 21.2% only use bottles and 32.8% used both of them. The following factors were associated with the exclusive use of pacifiers: low maternal schooling level (eight or less years of education), lack of previous experience with breastfeeding, difficulty in postpartum breastfeeding, and lack of incentive to breastfeeding in puericulture. The exclusive use of feeding bottle was associated with unmarried mothers, aged 35 years old or older, and with less years of education (eight or less years). Women who worked outside home and had difficulty in breast-feeding had greater chance of giving both artificial nipples to the children. Conclusions: the findingspresent different featuresrelated to the exclusive or combined use of pacifiers and feeding bottles, being important to direct health professionals conducts towards mothers’ orientation.