Infant Feeding in Leicester City - East Midlands Public Health ...

14Table 1Initiation6-8 week prevalenceEthnic Group Maternities % BF Children % BF % Drop-offAsian 7,869 84% 2,562 62% 27%Unknown 2,514 83% 1,874 26% 69%Black 2,072 82% 219 40% 52%Other 112 79% 125 58% 27%Not Stated 187 71% 20,892 35% 51%Mixed 466 58% 702 49% 15%White 10,468 43% 3,719 29% 33%The pattern found in the Leicester City is similar to results reported elsewhere for the UK. In the UK it isgenerally seen that White mothers have the lowest rates of breastfeeding, both for initiation and forcontinuation of breastfeeding compared to all other ethnic groups. The 2005 Infant Feeding Survey(1)reported that only 74% of White mothers initiated breastfeeding compared to 94% of Asian/Asian Britishmothers and 96% of Black/Black British mothers. The pattern is similar to that reported above, althoughoverall levels of breastfeeding appear to be lower for all ethnic groups in Leicester City than reported in thissurvey. It also appears that levels of breastfeeding are higher in Asian mothers than Black mothers inLeicester City which is a contrast to national findings. Kelly et al(5) also found that mothers from the BlackAfrican ethnic group were 10 times more likely to initiate breastfeeding than White mothers.This pattern appears to persist when looking at the time that a mother continues to breastfeed her child,which again is consistent with findings from Leicester City. In the 2005 Infant Feeding Survey(1) 87% ofBlack mothers were still breastfeeding at six weeks compared to 46% of White mothers at the same timeperiod. There were also significantly higher levels of breastfeeding in Asian mothers (66%) and Chinese(65%) mothers compared to White mothers. Our findings show a similar pattern of breastfeeding levels at6-8 weeks to that reported in the national survey, although the actual rates presented are lower than thosefound nationally Agboado et al(6) found that White mothers were 69% more likely to stop breastfeedingcompared to non-White mothers at all time periods measured in their study, even after taking other socialfactors into account such as deprivation, mode of delivery and marital status.In the 2005 Infant Feeding Survey(1), the rates of exclusive breastfeeding were also higher in all ethnicminorities compared with those from a White background at birth. However, in contrast to the pattern seenin total breastfeeding, levels of exclusive breastfeeding was lowest in Black mothers than in all other ethnicgroups (including White mothers) at all subsequent time periods measured.