What is happening with exclusive breastfeeding in Peru?

摘要

Dear Editor:We have read the article by Matias et al, "Determinants of exclusive breastfeeding in a cohort of primiparous periurban Peruvian mothers" conducted in our country. It coincides with our personal experience in clinical practice, and some outcomes match national statistics.According to our national statistics for 2009, in Lima, 57% of children 0-6 months old were being exclusively breastfed. Moreover, Matias et al selected women who were intending to exclusively breastfeed, and it has been reported in practice that women who intend to breastfeed for longer usually do. For these reasons, we expected the authors to report higher rates of exclusive breastfeeding; however, they found that only 35% of women continued breastfeeding their children until the sixth month. This percentage could be explained owing to methodological issues in this study.