Quantitative Threshold Analysis: Assessing Breastfeeding's Protective Impact on Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia in Preterm Infants.
This study aims to thoroughly investigate the protective effects of various breastfeeding rates on bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), clarify the relationship between them, and further determine the minimum protective threshold.
This prospective study enrolled 276 preterm infants who were born in the obstetrics department of a tertiary Grade A hospital in Zhejiang, China, and were directly admitted to the NICU.
This study involved 276 infants, categorized into three breastfeeding groups based on proportion: low (100 infants, 36.2%), medium (98 infants, 35.5%), and high (78 infants, 28.3%). Notably, the incidence of BPD in the high-proportion breastfeeding group (19.5%) was significantly lower than that in the medium-proportion group (44.5%) and the low-proportion group (55%) (p < 0.05); however, there was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of BPD between the medium-proportion group and the low-proportion group (p > 0.05). Exploratory nonlinear analyses suggested a possible candidate inflection point around 0.31, above which the inverse association between breastfeeding proportion and BPD appeared stronger.
Breastfeeding plays a crucial role in protecting premature infants from BPD. However, this protective effect does not increase linearly but becomes significant only when the breastfeeding rate reaches 31%. However, this threshold-related finding should be interpreted cautiously and requires validation in larger studies with more comprehensive confounder adjustment.
This prospective study enrolled 276 preterm infants who were born in the obstetrics department of a tertiary Grade A hospital in Zhejiang, China, and were directly admitted to the NICU.
This study involved 276 infants, categorized into three breastfeeding groups based on proportion: low (100 infants, 36.2%), medium (98 infants, 35.5%), and high (78 infants, 28.3%). Notably, the incidence of BPD in the high-proportion breastfeeding group (19.5%) was significantly lower than that in the medium-proportion group (44.5%) and the low-proportion group (55%) (p < 0.05); however, there was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of BPD between the medium-proportion group and the low-proportion group (p > 0.05). Exploratory nonlinear analyses suggested a possible candidate inflection point around 0.31, above which the inverse association between breastfeeding proportion and BPD appeared stronger.
Breastfeeding plays a crucial role in protecting premature infants from BPD. However, this protective effect does not increase linearly but becomes significant only when the breastfeeding rate reaches 31%. However, this threshold-related finding should be interpreted cautiously and requires validation in larger studies with more comprehensive confounder adjustment.