Breastfeeding Advice Given to African American and White Women by Physicians and WIC Counselors

Abstract

African American women were less likely than white women to report having received breastfeeding advice from WIC counselors and more likely to report having received bottlefeeding advice from WIC counselors. However, African American and white women were equally likely to report having received breastfeeding advice from medical providers. Lower rates of breastfeeding advice from medical or nutritional professionals do not account for lower rates of breastfeeding among African American women.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Breastfeeding

“…2 Beal Table 2. 42 found that African American women were less likely than white women to report having received breastfeeding advice from WIC counselors and, instead, were more likely to report having received formula-feeding advice. WIC counselors may have a significant impact on African Americans' and Hispanics' decisions to breastfeed given that African American women (19.2%) and Hispanic women (39.2%) make up the largest minority proportion of the total population of WIC women.…”

Association of Breastfeeding with Maternal Depressive Symptoms

“…45,46 Data analysis Multivariate logistic regression models were built with variables shown in the literature to be associated with breastfeeding or found to be associated in bivariate analysis (p Ͻ 0.05). [4][5][6][7]9,10,13,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21] To prevent overfitting of the models resulting from the modest number of women who did not breastfeed, we limited the number of variables in final models by including only those variables with a p Ͻ 0.05 for both initiation and duration, with the exception of three variables (age, lack of money for food, and depression [our variable of primary interest]). We tested the interaction between depressive symptoms and race/ethnicity in both models.…”

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Less is known about the role of maternal depression as a possible contributor to breastfeeding practices. Prior work addressing the relationship between depressive symptoms and breastfeeding has focused predominantly on postpartum depression.…”

African American Women and Breastfeeding: An Integrative Literature Review

“…The women indicated that they received little to no information regarding breastfeeding from their obstetric-gynecological clinic providers, pediatricians, and hospital staff after delivery of their infants. Beal, Kuhlthau, and Perrin (2003) surveyed African American and White mothers who were WIC clients in Brooklyn, New York. African American women reported receiving less information from their physicians (p < .001) and WIC counselors (p < .001) regarding breastfeeding than did White women.…”