Abstract

In the last two decades, there has been registered a constant decrease in the number of breastfed infants and in the duration of breastfeeding. Our paper is aiming at pointing out the rate of breastfeeding in a group of infants correlated with mothers’ demographic profile, the ways to give birth, the time until the initiation of breastfeeding, breastfeeding counselling, and the mothers’ educational level.

The study had a prospective development, analysing the answers provided by the mothers of breastfed infants, who filled in some anonymous questionnaires given by family doctors and the 2^nd Paediatric Clinic of the Emergency County Hospital Craiova. The study comprised 110 mothers, with an average age of 20–25 years, 69% of them coming from an urban environment. 56% of the cases were first born children (only 9% being the third born child or more). In 60% of the cases, children were born by caesarian section. 42% of the mothers had a higher education level, 29% having highschool education, while the rest of them having primary and secondary school education. The moment they filled in the questionnaires, 47.3% of the mothers were breastfeeding their infants of 4 months of age, on average. 49% of the infants had an early breastfeeding, while 60% of the mothers needed counselling offered by nurses or neonatologists. 14.5% of the mothers declared they were never explained the breastfeeding technique. Nearly 75% of the mothers were never monitored during their breastfeeding process, at home.

Birth by caesarian section, lack of breastfeeding monitoring, and mothers’ lack of education may be the causes of the low rate of breastfeeding in infants.