What primary health professionals need to promote breastfeeding

Whelan, Barbara; McEvoy, S.; Eldin, Nazih; Kearney, John

doi:10.12968/pnur.2011.22.1.35

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Our study did not collect data on other hospital practices (such as rooming-in, skin-to-skin contact) or contact with other health care professionals, psychological or social factors. Hospital practices, interactions with other health care professionals outside of the maternity setting, feeding intentions, societal and family support for breast feeding are influential in how a mother feeds her child (Difrisco et al, 2011;Whelan et al, 2011;Shortt et al, 2013;Odom et al, 2014). Strengths of this paper include the consistent use of WHO definitions to describe breast feeding patterns (Fewtrell, 2011) and, in comparison to other studies (Giovannini et al, 2005;Jones et al, 2011;Tan, 2011), we also prospectively collected information on maternity care practices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early life factors associated with the exclusivity and duration of breast feeding in an Irish birth cohort study

et al. 2015

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early life factors associated with the exclusivity and duration of breast feeding in an Irish birth cohort study

et al. 2015

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“…Health-care professionals are sometimes not the best placed to give breast-feeding support. They may lack the knowledge and confidence to do so and not have a positive attitude towards breast-feeding ( 18 , 19 ) . Breast-feeding is sometimes considered to be something that health-care professionals ‘believe in’ or not, and having this belief then leads to acquiring knowledge and supporting it ( 20 ) .…”

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confidence: 99%

Breast-feeding support in Ireland: a qualitative study of health-care professionals’ and women’s views

Whelan

Kearney²

2014

Public Health Nutr.

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Objective: To examine women's experience of professional support for breastfeeding and health-care professionals' experience of providing support. Design: We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews among women with experience of breast-feeding and health-care professionals with infant feeding roles. Interviews with women were designed to explore their experience of support for breast-feeding antenatally, in hospital and postnatally. Interviews with health-care professionals were designed to explore their views on their role and experience in providing breast-feeding support. Interview transcripts were analysed using content analysis and aspects of Grounded Theory. Overarching themes and categories within the two sets were identified. Setting: Urban and suburban areas of North Dublin, Ireland. Subjects: Twenty-two women all of whom had experience of breast-feeding and fifty-eight health-care professionals. Results: Two overarching themes emerged and in each of these a number of categories were developed: theme 1, facilitators to breast-feeding support, within which being facilitated to breast-feed, having the right person at the right time, being discerning and breast-feeding support groups were discussed; and theme 2, barriers to breast-feeding support, within which time, conflicting information, medicalisation of breast-feeding and the role of health-care professionals in providing support for breast-feeding were discussed. Conclusions: Breast-feeding is being placed within a medical model of care in Ireland which is dependent on health-care professionals. There is a need for training around breast-feeding for all health-care professionals; however, they are limited in their support due to external barriers such as lack of time. Alternative support such as peer support workers should be provided. Keywords Breast-feeding Professional support Mothers' experience IrelandDespite recommendations from the WHO that infants be breast-fed for the first 6 months of life with the introduction of complementary food thereafter and continued breast-feeding for 2 years or longer (1) , the rate of breastfeeding initiation in Ireland remains one of the lowest in Europe with only 55 % of women initiating breast-feeding at birth (2) . Breast-feeding is a learned behaviour and women often depend on health-care professionals for support. This is particularly the case in countries where there is not a culture of breast-feeding, such as in Ireland (3) . Current maternity services in Ireland are free to all women under the Maternity and Infant Scheme which entitles every woman to care from a general practitioner (GP) and hospital obstetrician. Midwives provide antenatal, labour and postnatal care. Once a woman is discharged from hospital, postnatal care is provided by the GP and public health nursing service.Research has shown that women face different issues when breast-feeding such as not being adequately prepared for breast-feeding (4,5) , feeling embarrassed about breast-feeding in public (6)(7)(8) , perceiving in...

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“…Some of these factors are associated with healthcare professionals who can influence mothers' breastfeeding behaviors. [ 12 13 ] As indicated by percentages of participants in agreement, the current study revealed that the hospital's support system did not provide in-service training to healthcare professionals (64%) who were directly involved in maternal and child healthcare. Our study indicates most healthcare professionals were not trained to support mothers with successful breastfeeding.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%