Estimating the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding with data from household surveys: measurement issues and options

Thomas W. Pullum, Karleen Gribble, Seema Mihrshahi, Bindi Borg*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
66 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The importance of breastfeeding for infant and maternal health is well established. The World Health Organization recommends that all infants be exclusively breastfed until they reach 6 months of age. The standard indicator to measure adherence to this criterion is the percentage of children aged 0–5 months who are currently being exclusively breastfed. This paper proposes supplementary measures that are easily calculated with existing survey data. First, for an accurate assessment of the WHO recommendation, we estimate the percentage of infants who are being exclusively breastfed at the exact age of 6 months. Second, an adjustment is proposed for prelacteal feeding. These two modifications, separately and in combination, are applied to data from 31 low-and middle-income countries that have participated in the Demographic and Health Surveys Program since 2015. There is considerable variation in the effects across countries. The modifications use existing data to provide a more accurate estimate than the standard indicator of the achievement of the exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months recommendation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1058134
Pages (from-to)1-8
Number of pages8
JournalFrontiers in Nutrition
Volume10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Mar 2023

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2023. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

Keywords

  • demographic and health survey data
  • exclusive breastfeeding
  • infant feeding
  • IYCF indicators
  • WHO EBF recommendation

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