Mothers are reportedly distracted almost half of the time when breastfeeding or bottle-feeding their infants. In question, the technologies which represent 60% of the objects of distraction, according to a study published in Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
Researchers at California State Polytechnic University in the United States asked 75 mothers between the ages of 18 and 40 enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program to keep a diary of when they feed their babies.
The mothers selected for the study did not have gestational diabetes and had not encountered any complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Likewise, the children were all healthy, full term, less than six months old and had yet to include solid foods in their meals.
For one to six days, they recorded information on the duration of the feeding, the type of milk (breast or formula), the amount of food ingested and any occupations during this time. Other questionnaires allowed researchers to assess the child’s behavior, mothers’ engagement and their perception of their child when he was breastfeeding or bottle-feeding.
Majority technological distractions
Scientists have counted 43% of feeding moments disturbed by a mother’s distraction: 26% by a technological object, television, smartphone, tablet, computer, and 17% for another reason. A total of 92% of mothers reported at least one feeding session with distraction, and 83% with technological disturbance. The researchers were able to predict that the least attentive mothers were those who had more than one child and those whose newborns had a big appetite. Technological distractions were more common among ethnic minorities, for mothers with very young or very greedy children. On the other hand, no distinction is to be made between the level of commitment of the mother, the mode of feeding (bottle or breast), education, the body mass index of the mother, sex, temperament or the weight of the child.
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