Abstract
Objective:To examine the associations between breastfeeding intensity and underexplored features of maternal-child interaction quality over and above the influence of breastfeeding initiation.Methods:The current study leveraged an on-going, multisite randomized controlled trial of a tiered parenting program for 462 Medicaid-eligible mothers and their infants in the United States. We examined whether breastfeeding intensity and exclusivity was associated with observed maternal sensitivity, intrusiveness, and detachment, as well as self-reported maternal verbal responsiveness, 6 months infant age. Analyses controlled for breastfeeding initiation, demographics, and early parenting experiences.Results:Higher intensity breastfeeding at 6 months was significantly related to higher maternal sensitivity (ß = 0.12, p = 0.004) and lower maternal intrusiveness (ß =-0.10, p = 0.045). There was no significant association between breastfeeding intensity at 6 months and detachment (ß =-0.02, no significant [ns]) or self-reported verbal responsiveness (ß = 0.11, ns). Results were the same when intensity was measured as a dichotomous indicator for exclusive breastfeeding. Effect sizes were small-to-moderate, ranging from Cohen's d = 0.26 to 0.31. Associations did not vary by site, race/ethnicity, infant difficultness, or household poverty.Conclusion:The finding that breastfeeding intensity was significantly and independently associated with maternal sensitivity and intrusiveness is novel in the literature on low-income families from the United States. These findings have implications for breastfeeding promotion strategies and indicate that future research should explore synergistic or spillover effects of interventions aimed at maternal-child interaction quality into the infant feeding domain, particularly in the primary care setting.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 180-186 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics |
Volume | 41 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 1 2020 |
Keywords
- breastfeeding
- infant feeding
- low-income families
- parenting
- sensitivity
- Poverty/statistics & numerical data
- United States
- Humans
- Minority Groups/statistics & numerical data
- Infant
- Mother-Child Relations
- Young Adult
- Breast Feeding/statistics & numerical data
- Ethnicity
- Adult
- Female
- Maternal Behavior/ethnology
- Racial Groups
- Medicaid/statistics & numerical data
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Psychiatry and Mental health
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health