The incidence and duration of breast feeding were determined
via telephone questionnaires from a sample of 95 women who delivered
healthy infants during the month of September 1982, in the greater
metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon. This sample was limited in
that the women were married, predominately white, over 25 years of
age, and well-educated. According to the literature, these factors
have a positive correlation with the incidence and duration of breast
feeding. Consequently, the reported values for the incidence of
breast feeding in the hospital of 88 percent and the duration of
breast feeding for six months of 44 percent is higher than reported
values on a national level. However, the average duration of breast
feeding by women who had weaned their babies at the time of this
survey (6.2 weeks) is consistent with other studies.
The information obtained from the questionnaires was used to
measure the association between the incidence of breast feeding and
the amount of information women received during their pregnancy;
the duration of breast feeding and support system(s); and the
relationship between the incidence and duration of breast feeding
to the social factors of income, education, age, and race.
Chi Square was the statistic used to compare the distribution,
of responses among the three subgroups: women who breast fed only,
formula fed only, or both breast and formula fed.
Significant associations were not observed between the
incidence of breast feeding and information or between the duration
of breast feeding and support system(s). There was, however, an
observed significant association between the incidence of breast
feeding and the social factor of income. Additional findings
revealed that women most likely to breast feed had themselves been
breast fed as a baby, had breast fed their other children, and did
not smoke cigarettes. Possible explanations for these results are
discussed. / Graduation date: 1983
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/27452 |
| Date | 02 May 1983 |
| Creators | Marshall, Joyce M. |
| Contributors | Johnson, Elizabeth |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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