Associations between maternal and infant body composition, feeding practices, and perceived infant eating behaviour in Samoan mother-infant dyads aged 1-4 months

Breastfeeding has been shown to reduce risks for the development of obesity. While initiation of breastfeeding is almost universal in Samoa, there is an opportunity to improve the proportion of infants exclusively breastfed to 6 months (51.7%).

To investigate how Samoan mothers perceive infant appetite in breastfed infants, which has implications for early cessation of exclusive breastfeeding.

We administered the Baby Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (BEBQ) to 100 mothers of exclusively breastfed infants aged 1-4 months alongside anthropometric and body composition measurements, information on breastfeeding practices, and maternal/household demographic characteristics. Associations of maternal and infant characteristics with the five BEBQ constructs - Food Responsiveness (FR), Enjoyment of Food (EF), Satiety Responsiveness (SR), Slowness in Eating (SE), and General Appetite (GA) - were examined using Pearson correlations and multiple linear regression.

We found that BEBQ constructs were correlated with infant age, infant sex, maternal BMI, maternal educational status, infant BMI-for-age, feeding routine, average feeding bout length, and maternal confidence in milk.

Maternal perception of infant appetite appears to be influenced partially by maternal and infant body composition and breastfeeding patterns in our sample, highlighting potential points of intervention to promote recommended breastfeeding practices.