Determinants for early introduction of complementary foods in Australian infants: findings from the HSHK birth cohort study

Table 3 Sociodemographic and biomedical factors independently^a associated with very early introduction of solid foods (< 17 weeks) (n = 934)

Variable^b	Mean age of introduction of solids (weeks)	AdjOR^c	CI₉₅	p-value
Sociodemographic factors
Maternal age (years)
< 25	19.65	1.00
25–29	21.52	0.53	0.28, 0.99	0.048
30–34	21.87	0.47	0.26, 0.87	0.015
≥ 35	22.26	0.28	0.14, 0.58	0.001
Mother’s country of birth
Australia	20.97	1.00
China	22.58	0.39	0.12, 1.32	0.131
Vietnam	23.44	0.42	0.21, 0.84	0.013
Asia Other	23.22	0.30	0.12, 0.79	0.014
Middle-East/ Africa	21.51	0.64	0.29, 1.39	0.261
Others	20.51	1.07	0.60, 1.93	0.815
Maternal employment status
Not working at 12 months post-partum	21.77	1.00
Returned to work < 6 months post-partum	21.20	1.42	0.87, 1.92	0.160
Returned to work 6–12 months post-partum	21.83	0.54	0.30, 0.97	0.039
Marital Status
Married	21.98	1.00
Living with a partner/ De facto	21.59	1.19	0.65, 2.18	0.577
Single Mother	19.12	2.35	1.33, 4.16	0.003
Biomedical factors
Feeding method at 4 weeks
Fully breastfed	21.97	1.00
Partially breastfed	21.94	0.98	0.51, 1.92	0.970
Fully formula fed	20.58	2.34	1.49, 3.66	0.000

^a Non-significant variables were partner’s country of birth, mother’s occupation, index of relative socioeconomic disadvantage, parity, infant gender, infant birth weight, mother took antibiotics during pregnancy and labour, smoking status of the mother during pregnancy, alcohol status of the mother in pregnancy and postpartum, method of delivery
^b All variables in the final model were variables for which, when excluded, the change in deviance compared with the corresponding χ² test statistic on the relevant degrees of freedom was significant
^cAdjOR Adjusted odds ratio, CI₉₅₋95% confidence interval

ISSN: 1475-2891