Determinants of early initiation of breastfeeding in Ghana: a population-based cross-sectional study using the 2014 Demographic and Health Survey data

Seidu, Abdul-Aziz, Ameyaw, Edward Kwabena, Ahinkorah, Bright Opoku, and Bonsu, Freda (2020) Determinants of early initiation of breastfeeding in Ghana: a population-based cross-sectional study using the 2014 Demographic and Health Survey data. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 20. 632.

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Abstract

Background

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that breastfeeding should be initiated within the first hour of delivery followed by exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months. This study examined the determinants of early initiation of breastfeeding in Ghana using data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey.

Methods

A sample size of 4219 was used for the study. Descriptive statistics was conducted to ascertain the proportion of children who had early initiation of breastfeeding after which binary logistic regression analysis was carried out. Results were presented using frequencies, percentages, unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios. Statistical significance was pegged at p<0.05.

Results

Children of first birth order [AOR = 0.71, CI = 0.61–0.84], those who were delivered by non-professionals [AOR = 0.51, CI = 0.30–0.88] and those whose mothers were Traditionalists [AOR = 0.65, CI = 0.46–0.92] and Mole-Dagbanis [AOR = 0.69, CI = 0.54–0.89] were less likely to go through early initiation of breastfeeding compared to those of 2–4 birth order, those who were delivered by health professionals, those whose mothers were Christians and Akan, respectively. Conversely, children born to mothers who read newspaper/magazine at least once a week were more likely to go through early initiation of breastfeeding, compared to those who never read newspaper/magazine [AOR = 1.40, CI = 1.01–1.95]. Children born to mothers who watched television less than once a week were more likely to go through early initiation of breastfeeding compared to those who watched television at least once a week [AOR = 1.40, CI = 1.01–1.95]. Finally, women from the Northern [AOR = 2.40, CI = [1.77–3.26] and Upper East regions [AOR = 2.57, CI = [1.86–3.56] practiced early initiation of breastfeeding compared to those from the Ashanti region.

Conclusions

Empowering healthcare providers to be consistent in early breastfeeding initiation advocacy and effective community engagement on the need to embrace and practice early initiation of breastfeeding can improve the situation.

Item ID: 66606
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1471-2393
Keywords: Breastfeeding, Early initiation, Ghana, Newborn health
Copyright Information: © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Date Deposited: 05 May 2021 06:02
FoR Codes: 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 50%
32 BIOMEDICAL AND CLINICAL SCIENCES > 3213 Paediatrics > 321302 Infant and child health @ 50%
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