[For a better promotion of the breast-feeding].

OBJECTIVE: Breast feeding has many advantages. Our objective is to determine influential factors on duration of exclusive breast feeding until 6 months of age and total breast feeding until 2 years.

METHODS: A retrospective transversal study was made on 271 mothers of children aged between 2 and 5 years. The objective of study was to determinate factors which influence duration of exclusive and total breastfeeding. Epi-info was used to size and to analyse results, odds ratio and confiding intervals were calculated. Logistic regression method was also used.

RESULTS AND COMMENTS: Duration of exclusive breastfeeding was longer when mother instruction was less than higher school (3.4 months versus 2.9 months, p < 0.01), if there were not any maternal complications on breastfeeding period (4.3 months versus 3.1 months, p < 0.001). Duration of total breast feeding was longer when cow milk was introduced later and child sucking was important (more than 6 times a day). There was no correlation between weight and length of children and duration of breastfeeding.

CONCLUSION: We recommend promotion of breastfeeding.