The effect of obstetric violence during childbirth on breastfeeding: findings from a perinatal cohort “Birth in Brazil”

BACKGROUND: Recent literature has shown that many women worldwide are victims of obstetric violence during childbirth. Despite that, few studies are exploring the consequences of such violence on women's and newborn's health. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the causal association between obstetric violence during childbirth and breastfeeding. METHODS: We used data from the study “Birth in Brazil”, a national hospital-based cohort of puerperal women and their newborns in 2011/2012. The analysis involved 20,527 women. Obstetric violence was a latent variable composed of seven indicators (physical or psychological violence, disrespect, lack of information, privacy and communication with the healthcare team, inability to ask questions, and loss of autonomy). We worked with two outcomes: 1) breastfeeding at the maternity and 2) breastfeeding 43–180 days after birth. We applied multigroup structural equation modelling, based on the type of birth. FINDINGS: Obstetric violence during childbirth may decrease the probability for women to leave the maternity ward breastfeeding exclusively, having a stronger effect on women who have vaginal birth. Also, being exposed to obstetric violence during childbirth could indirectly affect those women's ability to breastfeed 43–180 days after birth. INTERPRETATION: This research concludes that obstetric violence during childbirth is a risk factor for breastfeeding discontinuation. Such knowledge is relevant so interventions and public policies can be proposed in order to mitigate obstetric violence and provide a better understanding of the context that may lead a woman into discontinuing breastfeeding. FUNDING: This research was funded by 10.13039/501100002322CAPES, CNPQ, DeCiT, and INOVA-ENSP.