Association between prelacteal feeding, early formula feeding and adverse health outcomes during the first 6 months of life
| Feeding method before hospital discharge | Hospitalisation (0–6 months) | AOR* (95% CI) | Diarrhoea (0–6 months) | AOR* (95% CI) | Lower respiratory tract infection (0–6 months) | AOR* (95% CI) | |||
| Yes n (%) | No n (%) | Yes n (%) | No n (%) | Yes n (%) | No n (%) | ||||
| Prelacteal feeding | |||||||||
| Yes | 148 (15.3) | 818 (84.7) | 1.44 (1.02 to 2.03) | 166 (17.2) | 800 (82.8) | 1.73 (1.25 to 2.41) | 246 (25.5) | 720 (74.5) | 0.85 (0.65 to 1.12) |
| No | 93 (12.5) | 650 (87.5) | 1 | 90 (12.1) | 653 (87.9) | 1 | 188 (25.3) | 555 (74.7) | 1 |
| Formula feeding | |||||||||
| Yes | 197 (14.6) | 1155 (85.4) | 1.39 (0.92 to 2.10) | 215 (15.9) | 1137 (84.1) | 1.50 (1.02 to 2.21) | 350 (25.9) | 1002 (74.1) | 1.00 (0.74 to 1.37) |
| No | 44 (12.3) | 313 (87.7) | 1 | 41 (11.5) | 316 (88.5) | 1 | 84 (23.5) | 273 (76.5) | 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 breast feeding at 6 months (yes; no). The models only included those with complete follow-up data for 12 months (n=1709).
AOR, adjusted OR; CI, confidence interval.