Long-Term Breastfeeding in African American Mothers

Abstract

Women who participated in this study breastfed for longer durations than the national average for African Americans. Findings can inform practice and research efforts to improve breastfeeding rates in this population using lessons learned from successful women.

New digital media interventions for sexual health promotion among young people: a systematic review

“…New digital media have already been used in a range of health contexts, including chronic disease, 28 winter preparedness, 29 general school health, 30 physical activity, 31 substance abuse, 32 mental illness, 32,33 dietary behaviour change 34,35 and breastfeeding. 36 Digital media have also been evaluated for efficacy in enabling health promoting capacity through processes such as information seeking 37 and holistic self-participatory care. 38 Further, these media also have been used in specific disease contexts, such as obesity 39 and breast cancer.…”

Hidden Realities of Infant Feeding: Systematic Review of Qualitative Findings from Parents

“…Feelings of guilt for not finding BF easy [38], for taking time out of work to BF [66], or for continuing to BF although finding the practice aversive [71] were reported. Some mothers felt overwhelmed, anxious, and frustrated with the intensity and unpredictability of breastfeeding [37] and found that "breastfeeding was demanding, not as easy as it should seem, and required perseverance" [72]. Developing resilience to judgement, and recognizing that "everyone has something to say about breastfeeding" [35,66,73] are coping skills that mothers reportedly used to help maintain their BF goals.…”

“…Mothers described individual (e.g., determination, self-efficacy for BF) and interpersonal (e.g., social support) coping resources as facilitators of BF maintenance [33,34,53,73]. Social support, "particularly enlisting a female relative, friend, or partner was important for BF continuation" [39,53,56,72,79,80], and one study [81] identified social media as a maternally perceived facilitator of BF duration and maternal support.…”

“…Parents desired professional and individualized instruction regarding infant feeding that was in keeping with their attitudes, beliefs, culture, and feeding decision from various sources [83], including physicians, pediatric nurses, lactation consultants, or professionals working in health care centers or public nutrition programs, described collectively here as health care providers (HCP). In contrast, studies illuminated that many parents found "infant feeding advice, support, and education from their HCP inadequate, missing completely, inconsistent or contradictory" [36][37][38]41,42,44,46,[49][50][51]53,55,57,63,72,74,76,83,97,98,103,104]. As identified within some studies, while it is important to promote and maintain BF, it is also necessary to ensure that the care, education, and needs of parents and their infants that are not BF are met [74,76], without stigmatizing parents who do not BF [68].…”

“…2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 13 a desire for expanded infant nutrition education that included parent's wider community such as family members, rather than only mothers, was identified within some studies [67,79,80,105]. Role models and support groups were noted as important by parents, but perceived as inadequate [38,72,103].…”