Nutritional status of exclusive breastfed infants in the state of Pernambuco

Exclusive breastfeeding (BF), after the sixth month of life, as a single food source is not recommended. It is believed that it is not possible to supply the caloric needs of protein, iron and vitamin without adequate food supplementation.

To comparethe nutritional statusof children withexclusive breastfeeding(BF)for more than 6monthsversuschildren with otherbreastfeeding practices.

Cross-sectionalexploratory studywith685children(39BF >6months and646with otherbreastfeeding practices).Situations ofanthropometricdeficit were considered by values< -2 in Z score, anemia evaluated by hemoglobin < 11 g/dL,and deficient/lowlevels ofvitamin A by serumretinol < 1.05 µmol/L.

There were nocases ofdeficitin the anthropometric ratios of weight/height, weight/age andbody mass index(BMI)among childrenBF > 6months,while the comparison group was approximately 0.5%. In theheight/ageratio,the deficitwasaround 2.6% in both groups.Inthe weight/height ratioand BMI,the resultsranged from28.7 to 31.9% foroverweight in group comparisson. TheaverageHb, serumretinol, weightand heightwere similarbetween thegroups.

The low prevalence (≤ 0.6%) of protein energy malnutrition in both groups represents a surprising finding, below the values found in reference to normal international reference, WHO standard.

Children who maintained BF after six months exhibited equivalent nutritional status to those of children with other breastfeeding practices.