This study investigated patterns of breastfeeding practice among different groups in Korean population_ A total of 1,768 infants who made visits to any one of the purposively selected health care facilities in two urban and three rural areas were taken as the study sample and had been observed once a - month for a period of six months from July through December 1982. The health care facilities selected for urban representation are the well-baby clinics of the Yonsei Medical Center in Seoul city and of Il Shin Women´s Hospital in Pusan City. Two county health centers of Hongcheon and Yongin counties and five sub-centers of Kangwha County Health Center were taken for rural representation.
Methods of analysis include (1) application of life table technique to obtain cumulative continuation rates of breastfeeding, (2) stepwise multiple regression analysis to determine the effects, of independent variables on duration of breastfeeding during the first six months after birth, (3) multiple classification analysis employing five independent variables that were found most significant in the regression analysis. The independent variables for the regression analysis are socio-demographic ones of the study infants and their mothers and intermediate and outcome variables of health care services in terms of frequency of prenatal visits, type of birth attendant, birthweight and duration of supplementary feeding.
´The findings are first breastfeeding tends to be less common among those residing in the urban areas, those attending well-baby clinics, those whose mothers received high level of education and those with working mothers. The average prevalence rate of breastfeeding in the study infants is found to be 91% at birth and 79io at six months after birth. The highest-rate: at birth is 97% among the infants who attended the Well-baby Clinic of the Il Shin Women´s Hospital in Pusan City, whereas the lowest, 73% among those who attended the Well-baby Clinic of Yonsei Medical Center in Seoul City. However, the prevalence rate at six months after birth was uniformly higher among all the rural infants topped with 91% among the study infants in the Hongcheon County. The lowest rate at six ´months, 45%, shows to be among the study infants in Seoul City. Second, in stepwise regression, the first five variables in its hierarchical orders together explain 24% of total variance in the dependent variable. The variables are those of residence, educational ´level of mother, employment status of mother, birth weight and duration of supplementary feeding.
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