OBJECTIVES: to evaluate the breast-feeding among people seeking the highlighting the causes of early weaning relating it to social, economic and cultural factors. METHODS: a sample of 599 children and caretakers who sought the Emergency Room of the Instituto da Criança, São Paulo, from of August to December 1998 were interviewed. A questionnaire asking for age, parents profession and education level, living conditions, family income, maternal work, exclusive breast-fee-ding length, introduction of new food, weaning reasons and the value of human milk was used. RESULTS: 86,1% of the mothers nursed their children and 92% claimed to be aware of the value of breast-feeding. The average weaning age was of 3,3 months; 75,9% of the mothers weaned their children without medical advice. The reasons stated by 38,9% of the mothers was that their milk was "thin", or "it dried" or that the child rejected the breast. Higher education of the mother and sewage availability depicted a relationship to longer breastfeeding periods (p = 0,016 and p = 0,011 respectively). There was not relationship between medical follow-up in the healthcare clinic and longer breast-feeding periods. CONCLUSIONS: although the majority of mothers were aware of the value of maternal milk and breastfed their babies, the average length of exclusive breast-feeding is lower than the nursing length advised by the World Health Organization, and that low education levels is a factor for early weaning.
Breast feeding; Weaning; Cultural factors; Socioeconomic factors
