Impact of Breast Feeding Duration on the Presence of Candida in Relation to Nonnutritive Sucking Habit among Group of Iraqi Children

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of breast feeding duration on the presence of Candida in relation to nonnutritive sucking habits.

This study was conducted by multistage sampling method. In the first stage calculation of the sample size was done, while in the second stage questionnaires were distributed to obtain the children personal information including: the date of birthday, gender, type of feeding, breast feeding duration, presence the nonnutritive sucking habits (dummy sucking, thumb sucking) with the duration of the habit. In the third stage, a sample of 100 children attending private and public kindergarten in Baquba city/Iraq were identified (50 children with nonnutritive sucking habits and the other 50 were without any sucking habits). Samples had been obtained from the oral cavity of the selected children and cultured on sabauraud dextrose agar media, identification of Candida albicans was done by germ tube under the light microscope.

A highly significant relation was found between the duration of breast-feeding and the presence of Candida, by which the mean rank of the presence of Candida was higher among children with breast feeding duration less than 6 months than children who got breast-feeding for more than 6 months. Although the mean rank of the candida among the study group was higher than that among the control group, the difference was statistically not significant. The mean rank of Candida was higher among children with mixed feeding than the children with breast-feeding and the difference was statistically highly significant.

Type of feeding has an impact on the presence of Candida among children. Concerning the presence of Candida, children who fed with their mother's milk for 6 months or more had the lowered median.