Breastfeeding outpatient in primary care as an important action to promote breastfeeding: experience report

Abstract

This paper describe a successful experience of promotion, prevention and support for breastfeeding developed by professionals from a basic health unit. This is a Breastfeeding Outpatient Clinic, implemented in a health center in Belo Horizonte, in August 2019. The Outpatient Clinic was established based on the perception of the unit's team that many mothers had difficulty breastfeeding, however, due to the work overload of this team, this assistance did not occur in a timely manner, resulting in early weaning. Initially, a meeting was held to sensitize the team on the breastfeeding indicators of the unit. Based on this knowledge, the implementation of a breastfeeding Outpatient clinic was proposed, aimed not only at dyad with difficulties in managing breastfeeding, but at all postpartum women in the area covered by that health center. A flow was created, through which it was established that all postpartum women who brought their children to carry out the heel prick test at the unit would be referred to the Breastfeeding Outpatient Clinic to perform this service. With the improvement of care, the users of the health center started to breastfeed for longer, which reflected in the improvement of the unit's indicators.