In a recent published study of more than 600,000 mothers, patients with an intellectual or developmental disability were about 18% less likely to have a chance to initiate breastfeeding during their hospital stay.
There have been a number of qualitative studies that have suggested that patients with disabilities do experience barriers accessing care related to breastfeeding and different challenges related to breastfeeding. They included in their analysis all birthing parents aged 15 to 49 years who had a single live birth between 2012 and 2018. Patients with a physical disability, sensory disability, intellectual or developmental disability, or two or more disabilities were identified using diagnostic algorithms and were compared with individuals without disabilities with respect to the opportunity to initiate breastfeeding, to engage in in-hospital breastfeeding, to engage in exclusive breastfeeding at hospital discharge, to have skin-to-skin contact, and to be provided with breastfeeding assistance. The investigators considered a physical disability to encompass conditions such as congenital anomalies, musculoskeletal disorders, neurologic disorders, or permanent injuries. Intellectual or developmental disability was defined as having autism spectrum disorder, chromosomal anomaly, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or other intellectual disability.
The study population included 634,111 birthing parents, of whom 54,476 (8.6%) had a physical disability, 19,227 (3.0%) had a sensory disability, 1048 (0.2%) had an intellectual or developmental disability, 4050 (0.6%) had multiple disabilities, and 555,310 (87.6%) had no disability.
They constated that patients with intellectual or developmental disabilities were less likely than those without a disability to have an opportunity to initiate breastfeeding, to engage in any in-hospital breastfeeding, to be breastfeeding exclusively at hospital discharge, to have skin-to-skin contact, and to receive breastfeeding assistance compared with patients without a disability. They also found that individuals with multiple disabilities were less likely to have an opportunity to initiate breastfeeding , to engage in any in-hospital breastfeeding, to be exclusively breastfeeding at hospital discharge, to have skin-to-skin contact, and to receive breastfeeding assistance compared with patients without a disability.
