Original articleReduction of Unnecessary Intake of Water and Herbal Teas on Breast-fed Infants: A Randomized Clinical Trial With Adolescent Mothers and Grandmothers
Section snippets
Methods
A randomized clinical trial involving adolescent mothers, their babies/infants, and respective maternal grandmothers was conducted in the city of Porto Alegre, in the south of Brazil, where the climate is usually mild; however, it can get very hot during summer season. The adolescents were recruited for the study in the rooming-in of the maternity ward of the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, which is a university general hospital, accredited as Baby-Friendly Hospital, where 3,000–4,000
Results
The clinical trial profile is shown in Figure 1, from the recruitment of the adolescent mothers until the outcome evaluation in the sixth month. From the 342 mothers eligible for the study, 19 (5.5%) were not included because of their refusal to participate. The losses during the 6 months of the follow-up totaled to 63 mothers (intervention = 28/163, 17.2%; control: 35/160, 21.8%).
The characteristics of the adolescent mothers, infants, and maternal grandmothers included in the study are shown
Discussion
The recommendation of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life has been incorporated to the public health policies in Brazil for over a decade. However, this recommendation has not been followed, as shown in the last national survey about feeding in the first year of life. According to this survey, the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding at 4 months of age is 23.3% and at 6 months only 9.3% [11]. Frequently, interruption of exclusive breastfeeding is caused by early initiation of
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Cléa Carvalho, Lilia Refosco and Olga Bica who participated in the intervention, as well as the families that agreed to take part in the study. They also thank the Brazilian National Agency for Science and Technology (CNPq) that supported this research. Leandro Nunes, Elsa Giugliani, Lilian Espírito Santo, and Luciana Oliveira were responsible for sample collecting, statistical analyses, and writing the article.
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