Started breastfeeding within one day of birth

By creating a continuous variable of time to initiation, we examined the mean time to initiation in each
country among all women and by mode and place of delivery. To create this continuous variable, we
converted responses in days to hours by multiplying by 24. Interviewers are trained to record the time
to initiation in completed hours or days. Thus, if a woman reported beginning breastfeeding one hour
after birth, she began breastfeeding no sooner than 60 minutes after birth and up to 119 minutes after
birth. Although it is unlikely that retrospective self-report of time to initiation is so precise (Stanton et al.
2013), an average for all women beginning within this interval would be likely to fall near 90 minutes. In
our analysis, we adjusted for this by adding half an hour to each hour, and a half a day for each day
reported. For example, if a woman reported she began breastfeeding immediately, her code was shifted
from 0 to 0.5, 1 hour was shifted to 1.5, and 1 day was coded as 36 hours. We calculated the mean and
median time to breastfeeding among all women and by mode of delivery among ever-breastfed babies
with non-missing responses. We estimated the lower and up

Dependent variable. The outcome variable was timely initiation of breastfeeding and it is giving breast
milk to the newborn within one hour of birth. It was measured based on maternal report and coded as 1
"if the mother initiated breast milk within 1 hour" and 0 "otherwise".

‘Delayed’ initiation of breastfeeding was the main outcome of interest. The primary source of
breastfeeding initiation data was from the birth record file in the DHS dataset and the women record file
in the MICS dataset. In both DHS and MICS, the data for the timing of initiation of breastfeeding was
collected from mothers using the unprompted self-reported question ‘How long after birth did you first
put (name of child) to the breast?’. We categorised it as a dichotomous variable of ‘Yes’ for women
putting their child to the breast after the first hour of birth and ‘No’ for those who initiated
breastfeeding within the first hour. We used the WHO recommended cut off for initiation of
breastfeeding [1] within the first hour of birth.

The dependent variable was initiation of breastfeeding. Women were asked how long after birth the
baby was put to the breast for the first time. Responses were recorded in minutes and/or hours. The
dependent variable was categorized as early initiation if breastfeeding was initiated within the first hour
after birth and late initiation if breastfeeding was initiated later than 1 hour after birth.

Husband's desire for children

Beating justified if wife neglects the children

Owns a house alone or jointly

Owns land alone or jointly

Respondent earns more than husband/partner

Person who usually decides on respondent's heal

Person who usually decides on large household p

Current marital status

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid Never in union 30 .2 .2 .2
Married 17008 95.3 95.3 95.5
Living with partner 279 1.6 1.6 97.0
Widowed 110 .6 .6 97.6
Divorced 347 1.9 1.9 99.6
No longer living 74 .4 .4 100.0
together/separated
Total 17848 100.0 100.0

Whether the respondent is currently, formerly or never married (or lived with a partner). Currently
married includes married women and women living with a partner, and formerly married includes
widowed, divorced, separated women and women who have lived with a partner but are not now living
with a partner.