PURPOSE: To verify the prevalence of breastfeeding in preterm infants weighting over 1500 g at hospital discharge and until six months of life. METHODS: This is a quantitative descriptive observational retrospective study, based on the analysis of records of infants born between January 2006 and December 2007, which were assisted by the Speech-Language Pathology department in the pediatric unit and the Speech-Language Pathology outpatient clinic of a hospital. The inclusion criteria were: low birth weight preterm infants, with no congenital heart or pulmonary diseases, no genetic syndromes, and APGAR score higher than three at one minute and five at five minutes. RESULTS: The results from the 156 records studied showed that the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding at hospital discharge was 58.3%. At six months it was observed a prevalence of 22.2% of exclusive breastfeeding. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding was well below the World Health Organization recommendation, which is exclusive breastfeeding until the sixth month of life.
Infant, newborn; Birth weight; Premature; Breast feeding; Weaning
