Effect of a Randomised Exclusive Breastfeeding Counselling Intervention Nested Into the MINIMat Prenatal Nutrition Trial in Bangladesh

Author(s)

Ashraful Islam Khan, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Iqbal Kabir, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Hanna Eneroth, International Maternal and Child Health, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Shams El Arifeen, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Eva-Charlotte Ekström, International Maternal and Child Health, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Edward A. Frongillo Jr., University of South CarolinaFollow
Lars Åke Persson, International Maternal and Child Health, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

ORCID iD

Edward Frongillo: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8265-9815

Document Type

Article

Subject Area(s)

Adult; Bangladesh; Breast Feeding (statistics & numerical data); Combined Modality Therapy; Counseling; Dietary Supplements; Female; Folic Acid (therapeutic use); Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Iron (therapeutic use); Male; Malnutrition (diet therapy); Micronutrients (therapeutic use); Pregnancy; Pregnancy Complications (diet therapy); Prenatal Care (methods); Prenatal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; Treatment Outcome

Abstract

AIM: It is unknown whether maternal malnutrition reduces the effect of counselling on exclusive breastfeeding. This study evaluated the effect of breastfeeding counselling on the duration of exclusive breastfeeding, and whether the timing of prenatal food and different micronutrient supplements further prolonged this duration. METHODS: Pregnant women in Matlab, Bangladesh, were randomised to receive daily food supplements of 600 kcal at nine weeks of gestation or at the standard 20 weeks. They also were allocated to either 30 mg of iron and 400 μg folic acid, or the standard programme 60 mg of iron and folic acid or multiple micronutrients. At 30 weeks of gestation, 3188 women were randomised to receive either eight breastfeeding counselling sessions or the usual health messages. RESULTS: The median duration of exclusive breastfeeding was 135 days in the counselling group and 75 days in the usual health message group (p < 0.001). Prenatal supplements did not modify the effects of counselling. Women in the usual health message group who were randomised to multiple micronutrients exclusively breastfed for 12 days longer than mothers receiving the standard iron-folate combination (p = 0.003). CONCLUSION: Breastfeeding counselling increased the duration of exclusive breastfeeding by 60 days. This duration was not influenced by the supplements.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.13601

Publication Info

Published in Acta Pædiatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992), Volume 106, Issue 1, 2016, pages 49-54.

Rights

©2016 The Authors. Acta Pædiatrica published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation Acta Pædiatrica

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

APA Citation

Khan, A., Kabir, I., Eneroth, H., El Arifeen, S., Ekström, E., Frongillo, E., & Persson, L. (2016). Effect of a randomised exclusive breastfeeding counselling intervention nested into the MINIMat prenatal nutrition trial in Bangladesh. Acta Paediatrica, 106(1), 49-54. https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.13601