Factors associated with early initiation of breastfeeding among Peruvian women

Abstract

Objective: To determine the factors associated with early initiation of breast-feeding among Peruvian women with children under 24 months, using the Demographic and Family Health Survey, 2020. Methodology: The study was retrospective cross-sectional and the effective sample was 8.088 mothers aged 12 to 49 years. An individual questionnaire was used. Results: The prevalence of early initiation of breastfeeding was 49.6% and the associated factors were having two children (ORa: 1.42), living in the Sierra region (ORa: 1.73) and jungle (ORa: 1.72), weight ≥2.500 (ORa: 196), maintaining contact skin-to-skin (ORa: 2.15) and not having a cesarean delivery (OR: 9.21). Conclusions: To improve the early initiation of breastfeeding, prenatal care providers and delivery room providers from different health facilities should provide more support to women without children and living in the coastal region. Likewise, they should promote skin-to-skin contact and, on the contrary, discourage women from unjustified caesarean section and pre-dairy feeding.