Smoking and breastfeeding status

Abstract

In women who breastfeed, cigarette smoking is associated with early termination of lactation. The relationship among smoking, demographic variable, and breastfeeding status at 8 weeks postpartum was examined in 400 mothers of term infants and 110 mothers of low-birth-weight (LBW) infants using multivariate analysis. Women who smoked were more apt to stop breastfeeding early in both study samples. In addition, in the term sample, older and married women more frequently reported breastfeeding at 8 weeks than younger, nonmarried women. In the LBW sample, those who were employed were less apt to report breastfeeding at 8 weeks than those who were unemployed. Also, a greater proportion of smokers in both samples indicated insufficient milk as a reason for a decline in breastfeeding compared to nonsmokers. The effects of cigarette smoking should be examined in subsequent studies of breastfeeding patterns.

Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Behavioural Characteristics in 2 - 4-Month-old Infants

“…There is uncertainty as to whether ante natal tobacco exposure may lead to infant's lower Apgar score, and while some authors failed to confirm such an association [5,56], the others reported affirmative results [42], similar to what has been found in this study. The infants born to smoking mothers were characterised by a reduced rate and shorter duration of breast feeding, and this was in accord with previous reports [8,12,25,28,43].…”

Psychosocial factors underlying the mother’s decision to continue exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months: an elicitation study

“…The present study clearly demonstrates that women place a very high value on the emotional and health benefits of continued EBF for 6 months. ‘Strong bond with the baby’ and ‘improved health from EBF’ were the most mentioned advantages, which agrees with earlier studies examining reasons associated with long‐term breastfeeding (Hill & Aldag, 1996; Arora et al. , 2000; Cernadas et al.…”

Maternal, paternal and environmental tobacco smoking and breast feeding

“…As expected, 13–23 there were strong associations between maternal smoking and the failure to start breast feeding, independent of other potential confounders. We also documented that ETS exposure (through smoking by the father or otherwise) in utero and post partum appeared to be detrimental towards breast‐feeding initiation.…”