Effects of maternal nutritional status and maternal energy supplementation on length of postpartum amenorrhea among Guatemalan women.
To investigate the extent to which better maternal nutrition leads to reduction in length of postpartum amenorrhea, multivariate-logistic and linear-regression analyses were applied to data on 339 mother-infant pairs from the longitudinal Guatemalan Four Village Study, 1969-1977. Maternal triceps skinfold thickness was negatively associated with length of amenorrhea when infant supplementation (a proxy for reduced suckling) was accounted for. However, its effect was small: amenorrhea was only 0.5 mo shorter among women at the 75th percentile than among those at the 25th, equivalent to less than even one additional child during the women's reproductive years. Maternal supplementation was not associated with length of amenorrhea when infant supplementation was controlled. This is in contrast to previous studies in which breast-feeding or infant supplementation was not controlled. These results suggest that infant, not maternal, supplementation influences length of postpartum amenorrhea, and that maternal nutritional status has minimal influence.
Kurz
K M
KM
Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.
Habicht
J P
JP
Rasmussen
K M
KM
Schwager
S J
SJ
D000568:Amenorrhea / Q000178:diet therapy; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002149:Energy Intake; D005260:Female; D006166:Guatemala; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D009752:Nutritional Status / Q000502:physiology*; D049590:Postpartum Period / Q000502:physiology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D012044:Regression Analysis