Skip to main content
. 2022 Mar 16;17(3):259–268. doi: 10.1089/bfm.2021.0062

Table 3.

Associations Between Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms and Breastfeeding and Infant Care Practices, Life After Pregnancy Study (2016, United States)

  Women subthreshold OC symptoms (n = 200, 86%)
Women with clinically elevated OC symptomsa (n = 32, 14%)
β (95% CI) Adjusted β (95% CI)
Median (inter-quartile range)
Postpartum OC symptoms related to infant care 16 (12) 24 (18) 6.0 (2.7 to 9.3) 3.6 (0.4 to 6.9)
BSES-SF 55 (20) 43 (26) −7.2 (−13.8 to −0.6) −3.5 (−10.0 to 2.9)
Overall breastfeeding experience (MBFES) 119 (33) 110 (37) −5.3 (−15.1 to 4.6) 0.4 (−9.3 to 10.1)
Breastfeeding problems 5 (3) 6 (3) 0.6 (−0.3 to 1.6) 0.3 (0.0 to 0.2)
No. of times pumped breast milkb c c 0.6 (0.0 to 1.3) 0.6 (−0.0 to 1.2)

Missing data: Women subthreshold OCD symptoms: BSES (28), MBFES (26), breastfeeding problems (14). Women with clinically elevated OC symptoms: BSES (10), MBFES (10), breastfeeding problems (7).

a

Women with clinically elevated OC symptoms were those who received a score ≥21 on the OCI-R.

b

Number of times per day using a breast pump was a semi-continuous variable (Fig. 2).

c

Adjusted for depressive symptoms.

BSES-SF, Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale–Short Form; CI, confidence interval; MBFES, Maternal Breastfeeding Evaluation Scale; OC, obsessive-compulsive; OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; OCI-R, Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory–Revised.