Abstract

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding is the gold standard for infant feeding; combined with early breastfeeding, it becomes very beneficial for the child and his mother. However, caesarean section can affect its practice.

Objective: To evaluate breastfeeding practices after caesarean section in the maternity ward of the Essos Hospital Center.

Material and methods: Our retrospective and analytical cross-sectional study went from January 2020 to July 2020. Included in our sample were women who gave birth by cesarean section at the Essos Hospital Center, whose children were alive. Interviews used a preestablished and pre-tested questionnaire, Data were collected using CSPro software version 7.3.1. The odds ratio with its 95% confidence interval was used to assess the association between the different variables. Any difference was considered statistically significant when the p-value <0.05.

Results: We recruited 70 caesarized women, all the mother-child pairs had been separated, and none of the mothers had breastfed early. Furthermore, 42.9% of lactating women had given the breast between 1 and 24 hours after birth, and 52.9% twenty-four hours later. A statistically significant association existed between the duration of separation and the delay in breastfeeding initiation (duration of separation 24h (OR= 0.07; IC= 0.00-0.42; p=0.016); 48h (OR=0, 02; CI=0.00=0.18; p=0.002); 48h-72h (OR=0.03; CI=0.00-0.28; p=0.007)).

Conclusion: In this population, caesarean section and mother-child separation played a major negative role by delaying the initiation of breastfeeding.

Keywords

breastfeeding, caesarean section, post-partum