The Exclusive Breastfeeding Policies Implementation and Health Workers Roles in Medan-Indonesia

Abstract

Infant nutrition requires serious attention in its growth period, and breast milk become the perfect nutrition for babies. The Health Profile of Medan City in 2014-2016 showed exclusive breastfeeding coverage reachedwas only 3% in 2014, rising to 3.04% in 2015 and decreased to 1.33% in 2016. All mothers in the city of Medan with children under the age of two years became the population studied. Data collected using questionnaires conducted in Medan and analyzed using multiple linear regression. Based on results of studied was significant effect between the implementation of policy and role of health workers in exclusive breastfeeding (p=0.038), on exclusive breastfeeding with p<0.05. From the research, it was found that the influence of policy implementation and role of health workers on exclusive breastfeeding and suggested the need to enhance cooperation and commitment advance of governments, health departments, hospitals, Primary Health Centre in improving the implementation of the policy of exclusive breastfeeding with the approach strategy of communication, information, and education.