Rede e apoio social e práticas alimentares de crianças no quarto mês de vida

Abstract

Around 97% of Brazilian children start breastfeeding during the first hours of life. However, the beginning of weaning occurs early, in the first weeks or months, with the introduction of water, teas, juices, other types of milk and food. Social, cultural, psychological and economic factors, linked to the mother and the baby, may be related to variations of children s feeding practices in the first months of life. To investigate the relation between social network, social support and feeding practices of infants in their fourth month. Sectional study inserted in a prospective cohort, having as the source population newborns taken into Primary Health Care Units of the Municipal Bureau of Health from Rio de Janeiro. To evaluate the feeding practices, an adapted 24-hour dietary recall has been applied to the mothers (n=313) and two indicators were built considering the consumption of solid and milky food. To measure the social network, questions related to the number of relatives and friends to whom the woman can rely on were asked as well as the participation in social activities. A scale used on the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) was adapted to Brazil and used to measure social support. The analysis was based on multinomial logistic regression models estimating odds ratio and respective 95% confidence intervals, for the associations between variables. It was observed that 16% of infants were on exclusive breastfeeding, 18.8% were on predominant breastfeeding, approximately 48% received breast milk and other food and 16.5% were on bottle-feeding. In relation to complementary breastfeeding, almost 25.9% consumed solid food and 37% milky food. Children whose mothers had a small number of relatives to count on and with low social support were more likely to be on bottle-feeding than on exclusive breastfeeding, when compared to children whose mothers can reckon on relatives or with a high level of social support. Low social support regarding emotional/information was shown to be associated to predominant breastfeeding. According to the data presented, the need to integrate all the actors of the social network of the woman during pre-natal, birth and the after birth period should be highlighted, in a way that social support can serve the mother´s requirements, contributing to the beginning and maintenance of breastfeeding.