Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices About Wet-Nursing and Human Milk Banking in Kayseri, Turkey

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the present study was to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practices of mothers about wetnursing and human milk banking in Kayseri, Turkey.Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was conducted in the family healthcare centers of four community health care centers in Kayseri Province. The questionnaire form was fulfilled with face-to-face interviews of 614 participants.Results: Of the mothers, 88.9% had heard about wet-nursing, 10.9% had a wet-nurse of her own, 5.2% had a wet-nurse of her child, and 5.0% had been a wet-nurse of another child. Wet-nurses were chosen mostly from relatives. Of the mothers, 93.6% stated that they had not heard about milk banking, whereas 97.2% did not know its purpose and services. More than half of the mothers (61.6%) thought human milk banking as a right application, whereas 75.4% of the mothers who thought that it was not right were against it because they believed marriage between foster milk siblings was religiously forbidden. Most of the mothers (79.8%) stated that they could milk for another child, and 56.2% identified that they could donate breast milk to the human milk bank. Conclusion:More than half of the mothers thought that milk banking was a correct application. Mothers who were opposed to milk banking showed religious justifications as reasons. Placing the subjects "milk banks" and "human milk donorship" during education on breast milk in hospitals is important in terms of increasing the awareness of mothers.

Views of Muslim mothers in Turkey on breast milk donation and human milk banks

“…Similarly, another current hospital study from Turkey reported that 8.2% of the participants wet nursed a baby and 10.9 % were wet-nursing (12). Wet-nursing numbers were also low in the studies that were done in the city centers in Turkey, which is similar to our study (5,8,13).…”

Lactating Women’s Knowledge and Attitudes About Donor Human Milk in China

“…In another study in China, it was found that 36.2% of women hospitalized after delivery wanted to donate their human milk; this proportion was lower than that in this study (Lu, 2018). The proportion in this study is also significantly higher than those in three Turkish studies, 19.1% ( n = 46), 58% ( n = 134), and 56.2% ( n = 345), that were conducted among women who had delivered within the last 5 years, women who had given birth at least once, and women breastfeeding their children, respectively (Ergin & Uzun, 2018; Senol & Aslan, 2017; Yılmaz et al, 2018). In our study, the overall score in relation to LW’s attitudes about donor milk was higher than that in the study by Qin et al (2016), who used the same questionnaire among hospitalized women after delivery, i.e., 18.11 ± 2.73 points.…”

Attitudes and Views Concerning Human Milk Banking Among Mothers Residing in a Rural Region of Bangladesh

“…The first human milk bank was established in 1909, in Vienna, Austria; since then, more than 600 HBMs around the world now provide donor milk for ill and preterm infants (Green, 2018; Haiden & Ziegler, 2016). A nonprofit association, the Human Milk Banking Association of North America, was formed in 1985 to evaluate and maintain the standards for donor milk (Yılmaz et al, 2018). Currently, HMBs are actively functioning across 37 countries, as a result of increased awareness and the continuous demand for donor milk, except in Muslim countries (Kimani-Murage et al, 2019).…”