Breast feeding and hypertrophic pyloric stenosis: population based case-control study

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Abstract
All 102 infants admitted to Santobono Paediatric Hospital, Naples between 1 July 1992 and 31 December 1993 with surgically confirmed pyloric stenosis were recruited for the study. All were born and lived in Campania province. Controls were 204 infants randomly selected from around 600 enrolled from a provincial birth list for a child health survey; all were born in 1993 and were matched to cases of the same sex. Two medical students, unaware of the objectives of the study, interviewed the mothers at around the first birthday of their infants. Sample size was based on the assumption that a 15% difference in the prevalence of breast feeding between the two groups would be clinically significant. Relative risk was estimated by the odds ratio; 95% confidence intervals were calculated by Cornfield's method. The potentially confounding variables of sex; birth order; birth weight; maternal education, age, and smoking; and type of birth were studied by stratified analysis. The percentage population attributable risk was calculated on the assumption that the controls' feeding pattern was representative of that of the general infant population of our province.