Comunicaciones orales

https://doi.org/10.37527/2021.71.S1

CO 037. PARENTAL FEEDING STYLES AND THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH COMPLEMENTARY FEEDING PRACTICES AND GROWTH AMONG MEXICAN INFANTS

Claudia Ivonne Ramírez Silva1, Edith Kim Herrera1, María Guadalupe Rodríguez Oliveros2, Eduardo Ortíz Panozo2, Marcela Sánchez Estrada2, Marta Rivera Pasquel1, Rafael Pérez Escamilla3, Juan Rivera Dommarco1.

1Center for Nutrition and Health Research, National Institute of Public Health., Cuernavaca, Mexico, 2Center for Population Health Research, National Institute of Public Health., Cuernavaca, México, 3Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Heal, New Haven, United States


Background. Complementary feeding practices (CFP) and corresponding parental feeding styles (PFS) influence nutritional status in later stages of childhood. Findings on the association of these variables with infant growth remain inconsistent; in Mexico, a research gap exists in this area.

Objective. The objective of the present work is to characterize PFS and CFP, and to evaluate the association of PFS with CFP and infant growth at six and nine months of age, in a Mexican birth cohort.

Methods. CFP, PFS (pressuring, restrictive and responsive sub-constructs), and anthropometric data (weight, length, and abdominal circumference) from 263 and 234 mother-child pairs (infants of six and nine months of age, respectively) were analyzed. Logistic and linear regression models were used to determine the associations between variables.

Results. The predominant PFS was the “responsive style” (90%). Only 43.7% and 8.1% of six- and nine-month-old infants, respectively, had adequate CFP. At six months, mothers who were responsive to satiety signals had 11% lesser possibilities (OR=0.89, 95% CI=0.80, 0.98) of their infant having inadequate CFP than their non-responsive maternal counterparts and “pressuring to finish” and “pressuring to eat cereal”, sub-constructs were associated with lower weight-for-length (W/L) Z-scores and body mass index (BMI) (p=0.02).

Conclusions. A high proportion of infants were inadequately fed (>40% did not meet international recommendations). The “pressuring” parental feeding style sub-constructs were associated with lower W/L and BMI Z-scores, and abdominal circumference among under one-year-old Mexican infants. This emphasizes the importance of promoting parental responsiveness to infant appetite and satiety signals to achieving adequate CFP.

Keywords: infant feeding practices, parental feeding styles, complementary feeding, breastfeeding, growth.