Promotion of breastfeeding in Costa Rica: the Puriscal study
capítulo de libro
Fecha
1988-09-01Autor
Mata Jiménez, Leonardo
Sáenz, Patricia
Araya, José R.
Allen, María de los Ángeles
García, María E.
Carvajal, Juan J.
Metadatos
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The decline in rate and duration of breastfeeding in urban areas in developing
countries seems to have resulted from the transition from extended to nuclear
cofamilies
and exposure of young mothers to influences affecting their breastfeeding
attitude and working patterns.',2 Experimental studies have demonstrated
that early mother-infant stimulation has a marked promoting effect on
breast feeding and bonding, and that man behaves like many animal species
regarding mechanisms governing nursing and rearing behaviour.'* Breastfeeding
is also declining in rural areas in many countries, due to profuse advertising
of infant formulas and to 'Westernization' of ways of life." It was not
obiious, however, that many failures to breastfeed in urban and rural areas
have an origin in practices adopted during pregnancy, childbirth, and its
aftermath.' Such practices have proliferated as institutionalized delivery
increased in the last decades, expanding to rural populations throughout developing
countries. In Costa Rica, only 50 per cent of births occurred in maternity
wards in 1960, but in 1970 the rate had risen to 70 per cent and to 91 per cent in
1980. The increase in hospital deliveries was not accompanied, until 1977, by
promotion of early mother-infant stimulation, bonding, And nursing, since
strict separation and formula feeding of infants unfortunately had been established
for about 10 years.
This chapter summarizes observations recorded during 1976-83 in all the
77 847 live borns delivered in the San Juan de Dios Hospital, one of the largest
and more prestigious institutions of Costa Rica.7•9 Observations were also made
on neonates from a mountainous rural region, Puriscal, who were born during
the period September 1979 to September 1980 primarily in the hospita1.1°."
Possible effects of hospital practice were expected to influence rates and duration
of breast feeding, and health and growth of Puriscal neonates born after the
interventions.
Capítulo de libro -- Universidad de Costa Rica. Instituto de Investigaciones en Salud, 1988