Does socioeconomic status modify the effects of child care arrangement on the introduction of solid foods?

This study was performed to assess the influence of socioeconomic status on child care arrangement and feeding practice. The analyses were performed using baseline data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort which was conducted by the US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. The data were collected from a nationally representative sample of infants aged around 9 months old. In this research, differences in introduction timing of solid foods among 7019 infants according to child care arrangement and WIC program participation were analyzed. The WIC program beneficiaries were received more parental care than the non beneficiaries and the proportions were 52.2% (95% confidence interval, CI, 50.0-54.4) and 48.1% (95% CI, 45.7-50.6). The proportions of WIC program beneficiaries receiving home based care and center based care were 40.8% and 7.0%, respectively, and those of non beneficiaries were 42.8% and 9.1% respectively. Among WIC beneficiaries, the infants receiving home based or center based care were more likely to introduce solid foods early (<4 months) than those receiving parental care (odds ratio 1.44, 95% CI 1.18-1.76 and odds ratio 1.66, 95% CI 1.21-2.28, respectively). However, among non WIC beneficiaries, only those receiving home based care were more likely to introduce solid foods early than those receiving parental care (odds ratio 1.78, 95% CI 1.38-2.28). From these results, child care factors were associated with the early introduction of solid foods, while the impacts of child care type were different between the WIC and non WIC beneficiaries.