Association of Early Breastfeeding Initiation with Postpartum Depression in Nepal

KC Ashish's longitudinal cohort study includes data from 898 mother-infant pairs across 9 district hospitals in Nepal. The dataset, last updated in 2026, analyzes the association between the timing of breastfeeding initiation and postpartum depressive symptoms assessed at 7, 45, and 90 days after birth. The study found 31.4% of women reported depressive symptoms at 90 days postpartum.

Use Cases

• Assessing the association between delayed breastfeeding initiation and postpartum depression risk based on logistic regression results.
• Modeling longitudinal trends in postpartum depression scores based on repeated measures at 7, 45, and 90 days.
• Investigating sociodemographic factors as confounders or mediators in the relationship between breastfeeding and maternal mental health.

Strengths

• Includes data from 898 mother-infant pairs, providing a substantial sample size.
• Longitudinal design with depressive symptoms assessed at multiple time points (7, 45, and 90 days postpartum).
• Analysis adjusts for confounding and mediating factors using multiple statistical models (logistic regression, GEE, GLMM).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is specific to 9 district hospitals in Nepal, which may limit generalizability.

Provenance

Source

KC Ashish via figshare.

Collection Method

Data collected from a multi-centric longitudinal cohort study.

Time Range

Data collection likely occurred around the time of childbirth and up to 90 days postpartum.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-15 05:31:20; freshness should be verified.

Geography

9 district hospitals in Nepal.