CONNEXION BETWEEN BREASTFEEDING AND SUITABLE WEIGHT AMONG CHILDREN WITHIN A CITY IN THE BRAZILIAN’S NORTHEASTERN COUNTRYSIDE

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: The World Health Organization (WHO) establishes that exclusive breastfeeding must be offered up to 6 months old, there are several benefits of breastfeeding for children. This paper has the goal of identifying links between breastfeeding and suitable children weight in an area assisted by “Estratégia Saúde da Família” (ESF). METHODS: Quantitative descriptive study, using research data from “Introduction to Children’s Integral Health in José e Maria neighborhood, Petrolina-PE”, executed in 2015 by the Academic League of Family and Community Medicine from Univasf. In this research 161 families were interviewed, 172 of the 226 children attended the inclusion criteria (between 6 months and 9 years old). The data were entered in Microsoft Excel and analyzed in BioEstat 5.3 software. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The results showed that most of the children weren’t exclusively breastfed up to 6 months old (69,77%) and had suitable weight (91,28%), according to WHO’s chart. Amongst the children whom were exclusively breastfed up to 6 months or more 6,12% weren’t in the suitable weight percentile; while among the ones that weren’t exclusively breastfed up to 6 months, 11,11% were in the unsuitable weight percentile. It was noticed a high number of children which weren’t exclusively breastfed up to 6 months, this reassures the need of approaching this subjects in prenatal and post childbirth care, by the ESF. Furthermore, it was also noticed that children deprived from exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months had worse results regarding suitable weight.