‘Not shocking’: Breastfeeding rates at large hospital fell during pandemic

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The rate of exclusive breastfeeding among mothers of neonates fell 11 percentage points from pre-pandemic levels at a large hospital in California, according to data presented at the AAP National Conference & Exhibition.

Co-author John Wang, DO, MPH, a 3rd-year pediatric resident at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, told Healio in an interview that he helped initiate the study with the goal of improving breastfeeding rates at the center’s newborn nursery.

“SARS-CoV-2 has posed many challenges to breastfeeding, including staffing shortages, a decrease in in-person lactation support, and parental concerns of contracting and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from mother to babies,” Wang said.

Wang and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study of newborns in the center’s nursery from January 2019 to April 2021 who were either exclusively breastfed or received breast milk and formula during their newborn nursery stay.

The researchers noted that the AAP and CDC recommend that mothers exclusively breastfeed infants for the first 6 months of life.

In the study, they divided participants into two groups: a pre-SARS-CoV-2 group comprising 913 neonates born before April 2020, and a group of 763 neonates born during the pandemic from April 2020 to April 2021. Wang said they examined maternal data such as “gravidity and parity, ethnicity, age, mode of delivery, and pregnancy complications. They also included data such as “gestational age, birth weight, sex, and hyperbilirubinemia requiring intensive phototherapy.”

They calculated rates of of exclusive breastfeeding and any breastfeeding for each month and compared them using a Student’s t test, with a P value of less than .05 considered significant.

The researchers observed a decline of 11 percentage points in the medical center’s exclusively breastfed rate, from 73.2% before the pandemic to 62.4% during the pandemic (P = .0006). Rate of any breastfeeding fell from 94.6% to 91.2%.

“We were expecting the breastfeeding rate to decrease due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, so it was not shocking to see the result,” Wang said.

In fact, he said they expected to see an “even lower” breastfeeding rate in the SARS-CoV-2 group.

“We should take our experiences during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to create a foundation for future practices in case of another pandemic,” Wang said. “Quicker adaptation such as using telehealth could be beneficial in providing ongoing breastfeeding support for this important work.”

Wang and colleagues said the results prompted the creation of a task force to counter the effect of the pandemic on breastfeeding at the medical center, and said prospective studies in the future would be “useful in assessing the long-term effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on breastfeeding rates and associated effects on infant immunity, maternal-child bonding, and long-term health.”

Reference:

COVID-19 pandemic may have decreased breastfeeding. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/966486. Published Oct. 7, 2022. Accessed Oct. 7, 2022.