Household Food Security Is Associated with Infant Feeding Practices in Rural Bangladesh

Although household food security (HHFS) has been shown to affect diet, nutrition, and health of adults and also learning in children, no study has examined associations with infant feeding practices (IFP). We studied 1343 infants born between May 2002 and December 2003 in the Maternal and Infant Nutrition Intervention in Matlab study to investigate the effect of HHFS on IFP in rural Bangladesh. We measured HHFS using a previously developed 11-item scale. Cumulative and current infant feeding scales were created from monthly infant feeding data for the age groups of 1–3, 1–6, 1–9, and 1–12 mo based on comparison to infant feeding recommendations. We used lagged, dynamic, and difference longitudinal regression models adjusting for various infant and maternal variables to…