Survival Analysis of Duration of Breastfeeding and Associated Factors of Early Cessation of Breastfeeding in Ethiopia

The purpose of this study was to assess the duration of breastfeeding among women of reproductive age in Ethiopia and to identify determinants associated with early cessation of breastfeeding. Data for the study were drawn from the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey 2005. The study included mothers of 9,066 children from nine regional states and two city administrations. The Kaplan-Meier and stratified Cox’s hazard model were employed for the analysis of breastfeeding-related data. The Kaplan-Meier survival estimate showed that the probability of mothers who continue to breastfeeding was high (97.3%) for the first month. The breastfeeding rates then declined to 92.5% at 6 months, 78.4% at 12 months, 37% at 24 months and 8.3% at 48 months. The mean and median duration of breastfeeding in Ethiopia were 25.64 and 24.00 months respectively. The stratified Cox regression analysis revealed that younger mothers, mothers who had lived in urban area, mothers having higher education, higher maternal parity, early pregnant and being a Muslim and protestant were significant determinants of early cessation of breastfeeding in Ethiopia. Then, we recommend that the breastfeeding-promotion programs in Ethiopia should give special attention to young mothers, those who lived in urban areas, mothers with higher education, those who have higher parity, those who have early pregnancy and who are Muslims and Protestants since these mothers tend to breastfeed their child for a relatively shorter period of time