Incidence and duration of breast-feeding in Mexican-American infants, 1970-1982

The Mexican-American component of the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HHANES-MA) was used to examine the breast-feeding behavior of 2402 infants born between 1970 and 1982. The proportion of infants ever breast-fed increased substantially in recent years. Weighted proportions were 30.7% for 1970-1974, 38.1% for 1975-1978, and 47.6% for 1979-1982. By use of logistic regression models, children born into households with a college-educated head were shown to be more likely to be breast-fed than were other children; breast-feeding was also positively associated with birth weight. Infants in households for which the preferred interview language was Spanish were more likely to be breast-fed than were infants living in households for which the interview was conducted in English. Analysis of the factors influencing the distribution of weaning times among infants was less definitive because reported weaning times are heaped on multiples of 3 mo. The gathering of current-status, or status quo, information on infant feeding is urged for data collection in future studies.