Health goals in Uruguay: results of “Good Feeding Practices”

Abstract

The Health reform included a payment for assistance goals. In 1996, began a quality improvement program, Accreditation of health providers in Good feeding Practices (BPA), which in 2009 was included as a heath goal by the Ministry of Health. 
The objective of this study was to study results of BPA .A secondary analysis of surveys data applied by UNICEF was done over a representative sample of the population adjusted by age, type of health provider and region. It were processed exclusive breast feeding rates at 6 month over 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 data bases. It was calculated the evolution of these rates by accreditation of health providers, type of provider (public/private) and geographic region. Later, a binary probit model was applied to measure the variables associated to the results of breastfeeding.
Exclusive breast feeding increased in health providers which applied BPA all over the period (37% to 67%). Probit regression showed that accreditation in BPA was the variable which most increased the probability of exclusive breast feeding (17%, SD 2% and p<0.05). Breast feeding rate in 2007 (inclusion of BPA as health goal) differs 10 points with that of 2011 (57% and 67% respectively). Results of BPA were good and the strategy of accreditation seems to be an effective tool to improve exclusive breast feeding at 6 months old. The inclusion of BPA as a health goal had capitalized and enhanced a previous experience.