Bed-Sharing at 3 Months and Breast-Feeding at 1 Year in Southern Brazil

Objective To investigate the association between bedsharing at age 3 months and breastfeeding (BF) at age 12 months. Study design Almost all children born in Pelotas, Brazil in 2004 (99.2%) were enrolled in a cohort study. At birth, age 3 months, and age 12 months, mothers were interviewed to gather information on sociodemographic, reproductive, BF, and bedsharing characteristics. Bedsharing was defined as habitual sharing of a bed between mother and child for the entire night or part of the night. The analysis was limited to children from single births who were breastfed at 3 months. Multivariate analyses were carried out using Poisson regression. Results Of 4231 live births, 2889 were breastfed at age 3 months. The prevalence of BF at age 12 months was 59.2% in the children who bedshared at 3 months and 44% in those who did not (adjusted prevalence ratio [PR] for weaning= 0.75; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.69-0.81; P P P = .003) in children who were predominantly breastfed and 0.83 (95% CI = 0.76-0.90; P Conclusions Bedsharing at 3 months protected against weaning up to age 12 months.