Objectives:
to identify the prevalence of maternal breastfeeding in the first hour of life, associated factors and reasons for its non-occurrence at a childfriendly hospital.
Methods:
a cross-sectional study was carried out with 562 mothers and newborns. The data were obtained between October and November 2011 using interview forms and medical records. The Poisson model was adjusted for analysis of the prevalence of maternal breastfeeding in the first hour of life according to exposure variables.
Results:
the prevalence of maternal breastfeeding in the first hour of life was 31%. Only normal birth remained in the final model, with a prevalence rate 27% higher than caesarian birth (p=0.020). The reasons why 388 children were not breastfed in the first hour of life were classified as: problems with the health of the child (328, 84.5%), problems with the health of the mother (241, 62.1%) and delayed result of anti-HIV test (199, 51.2%); in the case of eleven newborns (2.8%) no reason was found.
Conclusions:
the results reported are still well below the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations and this can largely be attributed to the specific conditions of a tertiary level hospital, which predominantly caters for medium- and high-risk obstetric patients.
Breast feeding; Maternal and child health; Postpartum period