Research Brief
Purpose: To examine breastfeeding behaviors among Hispanic women who participated in a postpartum nurse home visiting program with a focus on improving breastfeeding rates overall.
Design: An analysis comparing breastfeeding rates between Hispanic and non-Hispanic women and the moderating effects of anxiety, depression, breastfeeding confidence, and acculturation.
Setting: Yolo County, CA.
Subjects: Participants of the Welcome Baby: Road to Resilience home visiting program (N = 158).
Measures: Mothers self-reported breastfeeding behavior, breastfeeding confidence, anxiety, depression, ethnicity, insurance status, access to WIC, and acculturation (i.e., language preference).
Analysis: Multinomial logistic regression with ridge regularization.
Results: Overall, anxiety and breastfeeding confidence were associated with more breastfeeding at three months postpartum. Anxiety had a greater negative impact on exclusive breastfeeding for non-Hispanic participants compared to Hispanic participants. High breastfeeding confidence was associated with increased exclusive breastfeeding at three months only for Spanish-preferring Hispanic participants.
Conclusion: Understanding health behaviors and resilience factors in Hispanic communities may inform interventions and policies in US that improve breastfeeding rates overall.
Paige was supported by T32NR021294