Non-parental care of infants tied to unfavorable feeding...(ine whether infant-feeding practices and...),Health

Kim and Peterson found that 55.3 percent of the infants had received regular, non-parental child care, with half of those infants receiving full-time child care. Among babies in child care, 40 percent began receiving such care at age 3 months; 39 percent, between 3 and 5.9 months, and 21 percent at 6 months or older.

"Weight gain and the prevalence of overweight were lowest among infants who received care by parents," the researchers noted in the published article.

The researchers also examined data regarding breastfeeding initation for babies receiving parental and non-parental care, along with the stage at which solid foods were introduced to the infants. Only starting solid foods before 4 months of age was associated with increased overweight among infants.

"Infants who initiated child care before 3 months of age had lower rates of ever having been breastfed and higher rates of early introduction of solid foods," they wrote. "Infants in parental care were more likely to have breastfeeding initiated and solid foods introduced after 4 months of age compared with those in child-care settings."

Further, infants in part-time child care gained more weight 175 grams by 9 months of age, compared with those receiving only parental care. Those being cared for by relatives also showed a weight gain 162 grams.

"A strength of our findings," the researchers noted, "is that the observed effects of child-care factors remained significant after controlling for maternal pre-pregnancy BMI (body mass index) and a child's birth weight."

"Although both factors are known to be strong predictors of childhood overweight
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