ASSOCIATION OF MATERNAL PLANT-BASED DIET AND THE GROWTH OF BREAST FED CHILD

Background and Aim: There is not enough information about the adherence to the plant-based diet in breastfeeding mothers and its relationship with the indices of their infant’s growth. We aimed to investigate the association between maternal plant-based dietary intake and infant’s growth among breastfed infants during the first 4 months of life.Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed among 290 Iranian women and their infants. We assessed the dietary intake of participants using a validated semi-quantitative 168 food items FFQ. We created three plant-based diet indices to evaluate the dietary intakes of breastfeeding mothers.Results: Mean age of mothers was 30.88 years. Protein and cholesterol consumption decreased significantly across plant-based diet index (PDI) (p<0.0001), healthful plant-based diet index (hPDI) (p<0.0001 and p=0.001 for protein and cholesterol, respectively) and unhealthful plant-based diet index (uPDI) tertiles (p=0.02 and p<0.0001 for protein and cholesterol, respectively). Subjects in the top tertile uPDI had a lower intake of potassium, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, calcium, folate and vitamin C, B1, B2, and B3. Unhealthful PDI was associated by stunting at 4-month-old in infants (OR=2.93, 95% CI: 1.15, 7.47). There were not any significant association between all plant-based diet scores and anthropometric indices including weight and head circumference (p> 0.05). Conclusion: Higher adherence of mothers to the plant-based diet score is associated with stunting among infants. Also, there was not a significant association between adherence to plant-based diet scores with infant s weight and head circumference. Extensive studies are needed to reveal the association between plant-based diet and infant’s growth.

Keywords:

Plant-based diet , breastfeeding , child growth , anthropometric indices , infants