engleski

Water intake from beverages among Croatian breastfeeding women

Introduction: Water is the most abundant compound in humans and is essential for maintaining normal physical and cognitive performances. Despite evidence of importance of water for the general population’s health, fluid intake estimates in breastfeeding women are lacking. Maintaining water balance can be challenging for this extremely vulnerable population. The quality of fluid intake, in addition to quantity, also needs to be assessed. Objectives: The main aim of this study is to evaluate water intake provided by different types of beverages in a group of Croatian breastfeeding women in order to assess compliance with recommendations for total water intake. For the sake of comparison, water intakes of similarly aged non-breastfeeding postpartum women were estimated, too. Method / Design: One hundred and fifty-nine adult women, aged 18 – 45, participated in the study and turned in complete data. Of these, 83 were full breastfeeding and 76 were non breastfeeding. They were volunteers recruited in paediatric clinics 1 month ± 1 week postpartum via word-of-mouth. Data on total fluid intake were collected from two consecutive 24-hour dietary recalls. Results: Mean water intake from beverages for breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding women was 1289.20 ml/day and 1197.20 ml/day, respectively, with 890.32 ml/day and 696.24 ml/day coming from drinking water, as a major water source. Breastfeeding group met only about 47.75% of recommendations for total water intake, while nonbreastfeeding group met 59.86% of recommendations. When the two groups are compared, it can be seen that the second major contributor to the water intake of the breastfeeding women is milk (17.20% ; p<0.001), while in the non- breastfeeding women this role is played by sugar- sweetened beverages (13.02% ; p<0.001). Conclusions: Croatian breastfeeding and non breastfeeding women had inadequate water intake. Differences in the pattern of fluid consumption were observed according to breastfeeding status.

beverages ; breastfeeding ; Croatia ; water intake

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