The association of infant feeding patterns with food allergy symptoms and food allergy in early childhood

Table 3 Risk ratios and their 95% confidence intervals for food allergy symptomatic children and diagnosed children

Variables	Food allergy symptoms (N = 326)		Doctors’ diagnosed food allergy(N = 76)
Variables	Risk ratio (95% CI)	p value	Risk ratio (95% CI)	p value
Direct feeding at the breast for 3 months (DBF-3m)	1.00 (reference)	–	1.00 (reference)	–
Pumping and feeding for the first 3 months (DBF/BM)	1.22 (0.81, 1.83)	0.34	1.01 (0.24, 4.28)	0.99
Mixed modes of feeding from the beginning (DBF/BM/FF)	1.54 (1.04, 2.29)	0.03*	2.13 (0.69, 6.53)	0.19
Direct feeding at the breast for 1 month (DBFShort)	1.05 (0.64, 1.72)	0.84	1.79 (0.45, 7.06)	0.41
Formula feeding for 3 months (FF-2-3)	1.34 (0.89, 2.02)	0.16	2.04 (0.69, 6.07)	0.20
Formula and solid food from the start (FFSF)	1.09 (0.61, 1.95)	0.78	1.89 (0.42, 8.44)	0.41
Maternal Allergy	1.02 (0.71, 1.49)	0.90	2.13 (0.98, 4.64)	0.06
Paternal Allergy	1.36 (1.01, 1.83)	0.04*	2.39 (0.95, 6.04)	0.06
Offspring sex: Boy	0.90 (0.72, 1.12)	0.33	0.95 (0.50, 1.78)	0.86
Prenatal smoking	1.45 (0.97, 2.15)	0.07	2.97 (1.53, 5.79)	0.001*
Caesarian section	0.98 (0.77, 1.24)	0.85	0.97 (0.86, 1.09)	0.62
Off spring BMI (kg/m²)	0.98 (0.93, 1.02)	0.30	1.27 (0.68, 2.40)	0.45

DBF-3 m Direct feeding at the breast i.e., feeding directly at the breast for at least 3 months, not including pumping methods or any other additional food or liquid, followed by mixed feeding; this group constituted our reference group, DBF/BM Direct feeding at the breast as well as pumping and feeding includes direct feeding at the breast and feeding of stored breast milk (BM) for the first 3 months, followed by mixed feeding, DBF/BM/FF Concurrent application of direct feeding at the breast, pumping and feeding and formula feeding in the first 6 months, DBFShort Direct feeding at the breast for a month and then mixed modes of feeding, FF-2-3 Formula Food for the first 2 to 3 months followed by formula and/or solid food, FFSF Parallel use of formula or solid food since the first month
*significant at alpha = 0.05; 95% CI – 95% confidence interval

ISSN: 1746-4358