Breastfeeding, Father Absence, and Social Support: Evidence from Mexico

• In Event: 3523 - Family Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 7: Parenting

Abstract

Behaviors related to early childhood nutrition are influenced by a mother’s social environment. In Mexico, where breastfeeding rates has steadily fallen, many communities have a history of domestic or international migration which affects the family support systems for women and children remaining in these communities. While social support has been shown to be important to health behaviors conducive to maternal and child health, scant research examines whether social support moderates the impact of an absent father on breastfeeding. We use data from the 2013 Social Networks and Health Information Survey (SNHIS) (n=296), a random household survey conducted in a municipality in Guanajuato, Mexico, to estimate Poisson regression models of breastfeeding duration. In multivariate models, an absent father is negatively associated with breastfeeding while social support is positively associated. A significant and positive interaction between father absence and social support suggests that at high levels of support, breastfeeding duration for women with absent fathers does not appear to meaningfully different from women with present fathers. This suggests that receiving high levels of social support during pregnancy may mitigate the absence of the child’s father. More research should be directed at understanding how social support processes during pregnancy can affect postpartum behaviors.

Authors

• Heather B Edelblute, West Chester University

• Claire E. Altman, University of Missouri