Duration of Breastfeeding and Its Correlates in Bangladesh

The purpose of this study was to assess the duration of breastfeeding and the sociodemographic affecting it. Data for the study were drawn from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health. In total 5,364 mothers were included in the study. The life table and Cox’s proportional were employed for the analysis of breastfeeding-related data, which showed that the average breastfeeding was 31.9 months. Cox regression analysis revealed that the duration of breastfeeding positively associated with maternal age, contraceptive-use, work status, and religion and associated with age at marriage, parity, delivery status, region, and maternal education. having higher education, higher maternal parity, caesarean-section birth, being a Muslim, who have not used any contraceptive were associated with lower duration of breastfeeding. suggest that health institutions can play a significant role in promoting breastfeeding cational campaigns that stress the benefits of lactation are important strategies for encouraging breastfeed longer.

Key words: Breastfeeding; Parity; Sociodemographic factors

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