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Breast feeding in Scotland
A E Ferguson1, D M Tappin, R W Girdwood
1Department of Child Health, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow.
Insights
Breastfeeding prevalence in Scotland is low, with significant regional and hospital variations. Guthrie cards provide a useful measure of maternal breastfeeding intentions, highlighting the need for interventions.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Neonatal Health
- Epidemiology
Background:
- Breastfeeding is crucial for infant health.
- Accurate prevalence data is needed for effective public health interventions.
- Guthrie cards offer a potential data source for breastfeeding rates.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the prevalence of breastfeeding in Scotland.
- To assess the utility of Guthrie card data for calculating breastfeeding prevalence.
- To identify geographical and maternity unit variations in breastfeeding rates.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of breastfeeding data from Guthrie cards for 131,759 infants born in 1990-1991 in Scotland.
- Geographical and maternity unit-level analysis of data.
- Comparison with other available prevalence data.
Main Results:
- Only 35.6% of infants were breastfeeding at day 7.
- Breastfeeding prevalence varied significantly, from 59.1% in Shetland to 21.1% in Lanarkshire.
- Hospital-level prevalence ranged from 51.2% to 16.4%.
Conclusions:
- Breastfeeding prevalence in Scotland is low and highly variable.
- Guthrie card data is a valuable indicator of maternal breastfeeding intentions.
- Targeted interventions are essential to improve breastfeeding rates.
Objective:
To measure the prevalence of breast feeding and to examine the value of using information collected on Guthrie cards (used for detecting inherited metabolic disease and hypothyroidism when newborn infants are 7 days old) to calculate this prevalence.
Design:
Analysis, by geographical area and maternity unit, of information on breast feeding collected on Guthrie cards for 131,759 babies born in 1990 and 1991, and comparison with prevalences from other sources.
Setting:
Scotland.
Results:
Of the 131,759 babies, only 46,949 (35.6%) were breast feeding on day 7. The prevalence of breast feeding ranged from 59.1% (376/636) in Shetland to 21.1% (1836/8719) in Lanarkshire and < 8% in some postcode districts of cities. Analysis of the data by hospital of birth showed that the prevalence ranged from 51.2% (2701/5275) to 16.4% (507/3090).
Conclusion:
The prevalence of breast feeding in Scotland is low and varies among areas and maternity units. Intervention to increase this prevalence is essential, and information collected on Guthrie cards is a useful indication of mothers' intentions to breast feed.