OBJECTIVE:

To compare the effect of early feeding and its impact on exclusive breastfeeding with conventional neonatal care in a private hospital.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Comparative, observational, cohort, prospective and analytical study conducted at the Hospital Ángeles de Querétaro from April 2015 to October 2021. Inclusion criteria: mothers with intrapartum and immediate postpartum periods, any birth route and application or not of anesthesia and neonates of either sex, term, without neonatal pathology or congenital malformations, Apgar at 5 minutes plus or minus greater than 7 and weight greater than 2500g.

Exclusion criteria: multiple pregnancies, newborns with any condition after birth or conditions that prevented breastfeeding. For the comparison between groups of qualitative variables, the 2’s test was applied and, if necessary, Yates’ correction with risk estimates.

RESULTS:

We analyzed 1175 mothers of whom 687 (58.4%) newborns were exclusively breastfed and 488 (41.6%) were not. The clinical and sociodemographic characteristics between the two comparison groups were similar. It stood out that mothers and infants who achieved successful exclusive breastfeeding were those in the early feeding group compared to those who did not (91.9 vs 52.6%; p < 0.001, RR 4.85, 95%CI: 3.80-6.18).

CONCLUSIONS:

Early feeding, in the first hour of life, has a beneficial, protective and positive effect on exclusive breastfeeding even up to almost five times more than when it is not achieved.