Aim: To assess the concept of exclusive breastfeeding held by nursing women by
comparing the period they consider that they perform it and the infants' age at
the introduction of additional liquids. METHOD: Cross-sectional descriptive study conducted with 309 women who delivered babies
at a university hospital in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil. The data were
subjected to descriptive analysis; the variables of interest were crossed using
the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test, the chi-square test and Fisher's exact
test. RESULTS: Approximately 30% of the women reported having introduced additional liquids
before the infants reached aged six months old, while asserting that they were
performing exclusive breastfeeding. The following variables were associated with
early introduction of liquids: lack of employment (p = 0.0386), younger maternal
age (p = 0.0159) and first pregnancy (p = 0.003). CONCLUSION: The concept of exclusive breastfeeding might not be fully clear to women, as they
seem to believe that it means not to feed the children other types of milk but
that giving other liquids is allowed. These results show that promotion of
breastfeeding should take beliefs and values into consideration to achieve
effective dialogue and understanding with mothers.
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