Health literacy of pregnant women and duration of breastfeeding maintenance: A feasibility study

Abstract

Aims: Research the association between health literacy (HL) and exclusive breastfeeding at 4-months postpartum. Background: Despite the benefits of breastfeeding (BF), its rates are low worldwide. Among the reasons for abandonment is the level of maternal education. Maternal education has been associated with HL, but evidence between HL and BF maintenance is limited. Design: A cross-sectional study. Methods: The sample compromised 229 nursing mothers recruited from January 2018 to the end of December 2018 at Spain by systematic sampling method. Women were interviewed postpartum on parameters associated with the start and continuation of BF up to 4 months postpartum. Multivariate logistic regression models to explain exposure variables and exclusive BF cessation at 4 months. Results: Approximately 10% of the participants had inadequate HL. Factors associated with early cessation of exclusive BF at 4 months in the multivariate model adjusted using a stepwise variable selection process based on a likelihood ratio test were civil status, risk of pregnancy, type of delivery, limited or inadequate level of HL, and LATCH score at discharge, with an 85.6% area under the ROC curve. Conclusions: Our study offers preliminary evidence regarding the hitherto inconsistent relation between HL and early cessation exclusive BF at 4 months, supporting the conduct of further studies with larger sample sizes and greater statistical

The Effect of Health Literacy on Obstetric Decisions of Women in Reproductive Age

“…Health literacy disease prevention scores of the mothers who had breastfed their babies for 12 months were found higher than those who had never breastfed or breastfed for more than 12 months. In conformity with our study, Vila-Candel et al have detected in their study that early cessation of breastfeeding was associated with low HL (17). In another research, it was defended that maternal health literacy must be improved to increase breastfeeding self-efficacy (18).…”

Influence of Health Literacy on Maintenance of Exclusive Breastfeeding at 6 Months Postpartum: A Multicentre Study

“…Although it may seem that a low educational level could be associated with a low HL, this relationship does not always have to be observed [38]. A relation was also recently found between HL levels and continuing EBF in a pilot study; however, the follow-up period only covered 4 months [25]. Therefore, the present study verifies a statistically significant association between limited HL level and EBF cessation before 6 months in line with previous studies [27], and observed that the probability of EBF cessation was more than two-fold compared to the mothers with an adequate HL level.…”

“…We excluded women with cognitive impairments, language barriers, or illiteracy (not able to read). Illiterate women were excluded from the study as they would be unable to complete the self-administered health literacy screening tools [25]. Finally, we also excluded mothers who we were unreachable by telephone after three attempts at 6 months postpartum.…”

“…Likewise, women's HL levels can also have an effect on their children's health during pregnancy and after birth [24,25]. As for the decision to breastfeed, the percentage of mothers who decide to BF rises with their HL level [26].…”

Breastfeeding behavior is not associated with health literacy: evidence from the German KUNO-Kids birth cohort study

“…All authors found positive correlations between HL and breastfeeding behavior, although the outcome breastfeeding was assessed differently in each study: feeding of a higher proportion of breastmilk than formula [Yin], a higher rate of exclusive breastfeeding shortly after birth [Stafford], and exclusive breastfeeding for more than 2 months [Kaufman] [11,12,14]. Vila-Candel et al found no statistical significant association between functional HL measured by newest vital sign (NVS) and exclusive breastfeeding for more than 4 months [34].…”