WOMEN'S MEDICINE USE IN POSTPARTUM AND BREASTFEEDING PRACTICES

Many women need to take medicines during the postpartum period, but there is limited evidence about the impact of women's medicine use postpartum on breastfeeding practices. The main objective of this dissertation was to contribute evidence about whether postpartum women's medicine use has a negative impact on their breastfeeding practices, using a large population-based dataset. The thesis focused on 1) medicine use for chronic
illnesses, 2) psychotropic medicine use, especially SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, a class of antidepressant), and 3) antibiotic use especially for mastitis.
Firstly, I conducted a systematic literature review (which is already published) and wrote three papers (prepared for three international journals), based on data analysis of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) which currently includes 95000 mothers. Singleton postpartum women and their children were included in the analysis. Sample size varied for each article based on the selection criteria for each analysis. Descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression and survival analysis were used for the analyses.