Attitudinal and Demographic Predictors of Breast-Feeding and Bottle-Feeding Behavior by Mothers of Six-Week-Old Infants

Abstract

A Feeding Questionnaire and an Inventory of Attitudes on Family Life and Children derived from scales of the Schaefer and Bell (1958) Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) were returned by 41 breastfeeding and 42 bottle-feeding mothers of 6-wk.-old infants to see what attitudinal and demographic variables differentiate middle-income women who breastfeed. Breast-feeding mothers had more years of college, more breast-feeding friends, and perceived husbands as more supportive of their mode of feeding than the bottle-feeding mothers. Scores on Marital Conflict and Acceleration of Development Scales of the PARI showed significant differences. Bottle-feeding mothers perceived their marriages as having more conflict and favored hastening the development of their infants more than did breast-feeding mothers. On the oven and covert attitude scales toward breast-feeding, breast-feeding mothers favored breast-feeding, and bottle-feeding mothers were against breastfeeding.