Dublin, Ireland, August 10th 2016: A new study by academics in Trinity College Dublin has found that there is a strong positive relationship between planned birth at home and breast feeding: breastfeeding was twice as likely after planned home births compared to hospital births. The research involved the largest population cohorts comprehensively examined to date for an association between breast feeding outcomes and place of birth in low risk pregnancies.
The study from Trinity's Department of Public Health and Primary Care, which included over 17,500 women from the UK Millennium Cohort Study and 10,500 women from the 'Growing Up in Ireland' study found:
Based on the collected data and on an analysis of factors surrounding home and hospital based birth, the study's researchers suggest a number of potential reasons for the stronger association between breastfeeding and home birth:
Principal researcher on the study, Associate Professor of Epidemiology in Trinity, Dr Lina Zgaga, said: "The key question that this work raises is: "When breastfeeding is so strongly recommended across the board by the medical profession, what causes lower rates of breastfeeding following hospital births? Hopefully this research can help us learn from the home birth model and identify the changes that could be implemented in standard hospital-based perinatal care to encourage and facilitate breastfeeding."
The research was published in the leading international journal BMJ Open .
###
The paper is available here: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/8/e010551.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=xhzhXOAeH2rfQnw#aff-2
BMJ Open