RELATIONSHIPS OF EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING IN SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE IN PALEMBANG

Abstract

Background: Nationally, exclusive breastfeeding in 2010 to 2012 only reached 33,6-35% that was caused by interactions of several social factors, demographic condition, biological issues, pre- and postnatal problems, and psychological issues. Despite that many studies have shown that exclusive breastfeeding  will give a lot of health benefits to babies and moms, this has not always resulted the expected outcome. Advances in this modern era might also become one of the contributing factors to social, cultural and economic changes, thus causing the decline in supports to breastfeeding moms. The data taken from the Survey on Indonesian Health Demography in 2007 shows that exclusive breastfeeding in Indonesia had declined as much as 30,2% and increase in formula as much as 11% in 2013. This study aimed to explain the relationships of exclusive breastfeeding seen from sociocultural perspectives in Palembang.
Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design to analyze the behavior of Early Initiation of Breastfeeding and Exclusive Breastfeeding for mothers whose her children aged 6-26 months in several communities in Palembang.
Results: Based on bivariate analysis was this study are 220 respondents. The analysis found that the number of children (0,003 < 0,05), supports from mother or mother in law (0,001 < 0,05), and ignorance (0,020 < 0,05) are correlated to exclusive breastfeeding, while families that keep themselves informed since pregnancy and postnatal period do not show significant relationships (0, 253 > 0,05) with exclusive breastfeeding. Conclusion: The results of the relationship analysis showed that respondents who had a number of children ≤2 people, husband support and in-laws support were significantly related to exclusive breastfeeding to infants. While mothers who did not seek information, the level of knowledge of mothers, the type of work of the mother and the attitude of the mother did not show a relationship to exclusive breastfeeding in infants.

Keywords: Exclusive breastfeeding, socio-cultural perspective