Maternal obesity, health status during pregnancy, and breastfeeding initiation and duration

Abstract

Objective. The purpose of this study was to determine whether maternal prepregnancy overweight/obesity has independent effects on breastfeeding initiation and duration and whether these effects are different for women who experience medical problems during pregnancy or labor/delivery complications in comparison with those who have no medical or labor/delivery complications.

Methods. We used the early childhood longitudinal study-birth cohort data. Kaplan–Meier survival functions, logistic, and Cox regression modeling were used in the analyses.

Results. Findings indicate that overweight/obese women with medical or labor/delivery complications were less likely to initiate breastfeeding in comparison with their counterparts of normal weight. We did not find an independent effect of prepregnancy overweight/obesity on breastfeeding initiation among women with no medical problems. This group of women, however, had an 11% increased risk of stopping breastfeeding with each additional month of breastfeeding duration in comparison to those of normal weight.

Conclusions. It is important to evaluate the health history and pregnancy complications among overweight/obese mothers in developing interventions for successful initiation and duration of breastfeeding.

Keywords:

• Overweight and obesity
• maternal prepregnancy BMI
• breastfeeding initiation and duration
• medical complications

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.