Differences in Breastfeeding Among Medicaid and Commercially Insured Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study

While breastfeeding rates have been increasing in the United States, they remain below targets set by multiple public health organizations. Lower rates are associated with certain demographic groups. We performed a retrospective chart review to examine rates of breastfeeding at the time of postpartum follow-up in a mixed-race urban cohort.

This study was conducted to examine the proportion of women who were breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks postpartum and to determine if these proportions differed by race and insurance status.

We identified women who delivered singleton term infants at an urban university hospital between July and December 2013. Self-reported breastfeeding status at 6-8 weeks postpartum was abstracted for all women who completed postpartum follow-up visits. Data were analyzed with logistic regression to compare rates of any or exclusive breastfeeding between women with Medicaid and private insurance.

Charts of 656 women were reviewed; 405 women completed postpartum follow-up within 8 weeks. The Medicaid population had significantly lower rates of breastfeeding even after accounting for interaction and confounding by demographic factors (any breastfeeding odd ratio [OR] 0.53, confidence interval [CI] 0.04-0.31; exclusive breastfeeding OR 0.48, CI 0.33-0.85). When stratified by race, white women on Medicaid had the lowest probability of breastfeeding of all groups (p < 0.01).

Among patients delivering at an urban academic hospital, women on Medicaid were significantly less likely to breastfeed than those with private insurance. The greatest differential by insurance was seen among white women. Efforts to improve breastfeeding should focus on low-income women of all races.