Determinants of duration of breastfeeding amongst women in Manipur

Objective: The purpose of present study is to investigate the dif ferentials and determinants of duration breastfeeding (BF) according to various socio-economic and demographic factors. Methods: A cross sec- tional study of 1225 ever-married women of reproductive age with at least one live birth was conducted in four valley ed through SPSS vs 16. Results: The median duration of BF is found to be 20.37 months. Among the six explanatory variables of interest, only two factors - place of residence (relative risk (RR) =1.35) and employment status RR = 1.88) have highly significant ef fect (P 0.01) on BF and only two factors educa- tional level (RR=1.02) and parity (RR = 0.83) are found to be statistically significant (P 0.05) on BF. Conclusion: The residence, education, employment status and parity have significant ef fects on the present duration of BF that is about 20 months which is below the India s national figure of 25 months and WHO recommended figure of 24 months.