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Observational Study
. 2016 Jul 8;6(7):e010016.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010016.

Breast feeding and the weekend effect: an observational study

Emla Fitzsimons  1 , Marcos Vera-Hernández  2
Affiliations
Observational Study

Breast feeding and the weekend effect: an observational study

Emla Fitzsimons et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objective: To compare the incidence of breast feeding by day of week of birth.

Design: Retrospective database study using 16 508 records from the 2005 and 2010 Infant Feeding Surveys.

Setting: England and Wales, UK.

Participants: Mothers of a sample of births from among all registered births in the periods August-September 2005 and August-October 2010.

Main outcome measure: Incidence of breast feeding after birth.

Results: Among babies of mothers who left full-time education aged 16 or under, the incidence of breast feeding was 6.7 percentage points lower (95% CI 1.4 to 12.1 percentage points) for those born on Saturdays than for those born on Mondays-Thursdays. No such differences by day of week of birth were observed among babies of mothers who left school aged 17 or over.

Conclusions: Breastfeeding policy should take into account differences in breast feeding by day of week of birth, which are apparent among low-educated mothers. Further research is needed to ascertain the reason for this finding.

Keywords: breastfeeding; postnatal; weekend.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of length of stay by day of birth for low-educated mothers. Source: 2005 and 2010 Infant Feeding Surveys.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of length of stay by day of birth for high-educated mothers. Source: 2005 and 2010 Infant Feeding Surveys.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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