Association between prelacteal feeding, early formula feeding and adverse health outcomes during the first year of life
| Feeding method before hospital discharge | Hospitalisation (0–12 months) | AOR* (95% CI) | Diarrhoea (0–12 months) | AOR* (95% CI) | Lower respiratory tract infection (0–12 months) | AOR* (95% CI) | |||
| Yes n (%) | No n (%) | Yes n (%) | No n (%) | Yes n (%) | No n (%) | ||||
| Prelacteal feeding | |||||||||
| Yes | 258 (26.7) | 708 (73.3) | 1.43 (1.09 to 1.88) | 271 (28.0) | 695 (71.9) | 1.56 (1.19 to 2.05) | 504 (52.2) | 462 (47.8) | 1.50 (1.18 to 1.90) |
| No | 165 (22.2) | 578 (77.8) | 1 | 164 (22.1) | 579 (77.9) | 1 | 310 (41.7) | 433 (58.3) | 1 |
| Formula feeding | |||||||||
| Yes | 350 (25.9) | 1002 (74.1) | 1.48 (1.07 to 2.05) | 357 (26.4) | 995 (73.6) | 1.37 (1.00 to 1.87) | 672 (49.7) | 680 (50.3) | 1.41 (1.08 to 1.83) |
| No | 73 (20.4) | 284 (79.6) | 1 | 78 (21.9) | 279 (78.1) | 1 | 142 (39.8) | 215 (60.2) | 1 |
*Adjusted for maternal age (years), occupation (currently not working; currently working), education level (secondary school or lower; high school graduate; college/university or above), parity (0; 1; ≥2), prepregnancy body mass index (kg/m2), gestational diabetes (yes; no), gestational age (preterm; not preterm), gestational weight gain (kg), caesarean section (yes; no), infant gender (boy; girl), birth weight (g), admission to neonatal intensive care unit (yes; no) and any breastfeeding duration (weeks). The models only included those with complete follow-up data for 12 months (n=1709).
AOR, adjusted OR; CI, confidence Interval.