Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
UCL Anthropology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Am J Hum Biol. 2022 Feb;34(2):e23621. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.23621. Epub 2021 May 30.
Physical breastfeeding problems can lead women to terminate breastfeeding earlier than planned. In high-income countries such as the UK, breastfeeding problems have been attributed to the cultural and individual "inexperience" of breastfeeding, ultimately leading to lower breastfeeding rates. Yet, cross-cultural evidence suggests breastfeeding problems still occur in contexts where breastfeeding is common, prolonged, and seen publicly. This suggests breastfeeding problems are not unusual and do not necessarily lead to breastfeeding cessation. As humans evolved to raise children cooperatively, what matters for breastfeeding continuation may be the availability of social support during the postnatal period. Here, we test the hypothesis that social support buffers mothers from the negative impact breastfeeding problems have on duration.
We run Cox models on a sample of 565 UK mothers who completed a retrospective online survey about infant feeding and social support in 2017-2018.
Breastfeeding problems were important predictors of cessation; however, the direction of the effect was dependent on the problem type and type of support from a range of supporters. Helpful support for discomfort issues (blocked ducts, too much milk) was significantly associated with reduced hazards of cessation, as predicted. However, helpful support for reported milk insufficiency was assoicated with an increased hazard of cessation.
Experiencing breastfeeding problems is the norm, but its impact may be mitigated via social support. Working from an interdisciplinary approach, our results highlight that a wide range of supporters who provide different types of support have potential to influence maternal breastfeeding experience.
身体上的母乳喂养问题可能导致女性提前终止母乳喂养。在英国等高收入国家，母乳喂养问题归因于母乳喂养的文化和个体“缺乏经验”，最终导致母乳喂养率较低。然而，跨文化证据表明，在母乳喂养普遍、持续且公开的情况下，仍会出现母乳喂养问题。这表明母乳喂养问题并不罕见，不一定会导致母乳喂养的终止。由于人类进化为合作育儿，在产后期间获得社会支持可能对母乳喂养的持续时间更为重要。在这里，我们检验了这样一个假设，即社会支持可以缓冲母亲因母乳喂养问题而停止母乳喂养的负面影响。
我们对 2017-2018 年期间完成婴儿喂养和社会支持在线回顾性调查的 565 名英国母亲的样本进行了 Cox 模型分析。
母乳喂养问题是停止母乳喂养的重要预测因素；然而，影响的方向取决于问题的类型和来自各种支持者的支持类型。对不适问题（堵塞的乳管、奶太多）的帮助性支持与降低停止母乳喂养的风险显著相关，这与预测结果一致。然而，对报告的乳汁不足的帮助性支持与停止母乳喂养的风险增加有关。
经历母乳喂养问题是正常的，但它的影响可以通过社会支持来减轻。从跨学科的方法出发，我们的研究结果强调，提供不同类型支持的各种支持者有可能影响产妇母乳喂养体验。
