The association between household socioeconomic status, breastfeeding, and infants’ anthropometric indices

Wilna Oldewage-Theron, Morteza Abdollahi, Forouzan Salehi, Wilna Oldewage-Theron, Yasaman Jamshidi-Naeini, Marjan Ajami

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: The growth, learning, and contribution to active life in the communities are better in well‑nourished children, and various factors influence infants’ feeding. In this study, we assessed whether household socioeconomic status (SES) affects infants’ length‑for‑age, weight‑for‑age (indicators of health and nutritional status) and breastfeeding (BF) (a necessity for optimal growth and health) status. Methods: In this cross‑sectional study, 150 households with infants of 1–1.5 years old were interviewed on these variables: family size, dwelling ownership, duration of BF, exclusive BF (EBF) for 6 months, parents’ age, parents’ ethnicity, birth order, delivery type, and parents’ education. Weight and length at 4 and 12 months were obtained from centers’ records. To determine SES, we assessed total years of parents’ education and household asset ownership by an index of nine owned assets. Results: The average of 4‑month length in the low SES group was significantly lower than the
Original languageEnglish
Article number89
Pages (from-to)5 pages
JournalInternational Journal of Preventive Medicine
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018

Keywords

  • Body weights and measures
  • breastfeeding
  • social class

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