Aleitamento materno, problemas de comportamento e consumo de substâncias: Coorte de Nascimentos de 1993 de Pelotas-RS

Abstract

Behavior disorders occurring in childhood and/or adolescence are multifactorial and have environmental, biological and social influences. Several studies have been investigated the factors associated to behavioral disorders, however little is known about the effect of early factors, such as breastfeeding. It is widely known that breastfeeding prevents various diseases, and researchers have investigated its effects on behavior in children and adolescents, but this relationship is not yet clear, especially in adolescence. This thesis aimed to assess the association between breastfeeding duration and externalizing behavior disorders in childhood and adolescence, and whether this behavior disorders in early adolescence predict the use of alcoholic beverages, tobacco and illicit drugs at 15 years. This thesis is comprises of three articles. The first article summarized the available evidence on the association between breastfeeding and behavior disorders in childhood and adolescence using a systematic review. For that, a systematic search of articles published in the PubMed, Lilacs and PsycINFO until December 2016 was carried out. The results showed that children who were breastfed for at least three to four months had less total and conduct behavior disorders in childhood, however the evidence is not clear in adolescence, and further studies are necessary. The second article assessed the association between breastfeeding duration and externalizing behavior disorders in 630 children aged 4, 1,227 adolescents at 11 years old, and 1,199 at 15 years old from the 1993 Pelotas Birth Cohort. The results suggested that breastfeeding for at least six months is a protective factor for hyperactivity at 11 years old, but no association was observed for any externalizing disorder in childhood and at 15 years old. The third article investigated whether externalizing, internalizing and both behavior concomitantly in early adolescence (11 years old) predicted the use of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and illicit drugs at 15 years old. This study included data from more than 3,500 participants of the 1993 Pelotas Birth Cohort. The results demonstrated that adolescents with externalizing behavior disorders were more risk of abusive consumption of alcoholic beverages, experiencing and to use tobacco in the last 30 days, and those with internalizing disorders were at greater risk for experimentation and recent use of tobacco. The presence of both disorders, although associated with a higher risk for experimentation and recent use of tobacco, were inversely associated with alcohol experimentation.