Parity and Breastfeeding in Relation to Maternal Risk of Type-II Diabetes

Abstract

There is an association of high parity and breastfeeding with occurrence of diabetes as found that parous women are at greater risk of diabetic mortality than nulliparous women. The aimed of the study was to determine the relationship between parity, breastfeeding and type-II diabetes among women of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A hospital based case-control study was carried out from Oct, 2015 to Feb, 2016 at Rehman Medical Institute Hayatabad, Peshawar. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 200 subjects (100 cases and 100 controls). Women were interviewed for socio-demographic variables, anthropometric measurements, biochemical, health, breastfeeding and parity through pre-tested standard questionnaire. Standard chi-square test was applied on categorical data to establish an association between the variables at 5% level of significance and Odds ratio was applied to find out the relationship between risk factors and diabetes. Findings illustrated significant difference between husband education, family size, monthly income and socioeconomic condition of both groups (p< 0.05). Family size of cases was significantly higher in case group. Significant results were found for para, gravida (p=0.000) and gestational diabetes in earlier pregnancy (p=0.001). The breastfeeding history supported that low ratio of doing breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding may associate with diabetes. Significant results were obtained for less breastfeeding and physical activity in relation to diabetes (p< 0.000). Overweight and obesity (66%) was recorded to indicate the poor nutritional status of the subjects. It was concluded that parity, gravida and short duration of breastfeeding and lower physical activity showed a strong association with higher risk of maternal diabetes mellitus (p< 0.05).

Keywords:Breastfeeding, Gravida, Parity, Gestational diabetes