Aim: To examine socio-economic factors, smoking, coffee consumption and exclusive breastfeeding duration.
Methods: This study was part of a prospective cohort study of children born between 1 October 1997 and 1 October 1999 (the All Babies in Southeast Sweden (ABIS) study). Eleven socio-economic characteristics (parental employment, civil status, whether parents were born in Sweden, parental education, residence at birth and during child's first year, crowded living), maternal smoking, coffee consumption, infant sex, siblings, parental age, and maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy were analysed using logistic regression and Cox's proportional hazards method. All data were obtained through questionnaires distributed at infant birth and at 1 y of age. Exclusive breastfeeding duration<4 mo and actual breastfeeding duration were our main outcome measures.
Results: Out of 10205 infants, 2206 (21.6%) were exclusively breastfed for less than 4 mo ("short exclusive breastfeeding"; SEBF). Backward stepwise regression analysis identified the following risk factors for SEBF: maternal smoking (95% confidence interval for adjusted odds ratio, 95% CI AOR 2.00-2.82), low maternal education (95% CI AOR 1.45-2.19), maternal employment less than 3 mo during pregnancy (95% CI AOR 1.17-1.54), paternal age<or=29 y (95% CI AOR 1.14-1.47), maternal age<or=29 y (95% CI AOR 1.08-1.39) and low paternal education (95% CI AOR 1.08-1.48). The odds ratio for SEBF increased with the number of cigarettes smoked. Coffee consumption was not associated with duration of exclusive breastfeeding.
Conclusion: This study indicates that socio-economic factors and smoking may be of importance to the risk of breastfeeding exclusively for less than 4 mo, while coffee consumption is not.