The Influence of immigration on breastfeeding: Results from the FinChildren survey

BACKGROUND: Breastfeeding (BF) is essential to health promotion, disease prevention, and diminishing health inequalities. Recent studies in the Nordic countries revealed suboptimal BF practices among immigrants. Our aim is, first time in Finland, to quantitatively examine breastfeeding practices and sociodemographic characteristics of immigrants in comparison with natives. METHODS: We use a nationwide FinChildren (2020) survey on parents with infants, focusing on Somali- (n = 29), Arabic- (n = 81) and Russian speaking (n = 181) parents and their infants. We compared them with native Finnish speakers (n = 7508) using logistic regression and adjusting for confounders. RESULTS: Somali/Arab mothers had lower educational level, had higher BMI, were younger in age, and had more often C-sections. Proportions of both exclusive and any breastfeeding at 4-5 months were lower among Somali/Arabic speaking mothers (14% and 97%, respectively) compared to native Finnish (39% and 99%, respectively) and to Russian speaking mothers (41% and 98%, respectively). The difference in proportions of any BF between groups was not statistically significant. In the regression models fitted, being a Somali/Arabic speaking mother alone increased the odds of non-exclusive BF at 4-5 months fourfold (aOR 0.23, 95% CI 0.07, 0.72). Over 30% of Somali/Arab mothers had planned to mix feed their infants during antenatal period. This was inversely associated with exclusive BF at 4-5 months (aOR 0.14, 95% CI 0.11, 0.18) in the adjusted model. CONCLUSIONS: Both exclusive and any BF were more common amongst native Finnish and Russian speaking mothers compared with Somali/Arabic speaking mothers. This study suggests the need for culturally sensitive interventions to promote BF amongst immigrants from outside Europe and to minimise any health inequality resulted from it. KEY MESSAGES: • This study found suboptimal breastfeeding practices amongst immigrant groups from outside Europe. Hence, it emphasizes the need for future research to further examine this pattern. • Results of the present study emphasize the need for culturally sensitive breastfeeding interventions to prevent health inequalities in early nutrition.