Other Titles

Session: EBN research utilization

Abstract

Objective: To explore the infant feeding decision of new mothers and elicit their perspective regarding breastfeeding.

Design: Descriptive exploratory.

Setting: Postpartum units at seven birthing hospitals, including two tertiary perinatal centers in New Jersey and thirteen participant home telephone interviews.

Participants: 394 new mothers prior to hospital discharge; 13 interviewees including a total of eight African-American women, five who were non-WIC eligible and a total of five White women, three who were non-WIC eligible.

Main Outcome Measures: Central Jersey New Mother Survey, semi structured home telephone interviews.

Results: Knowledge regarding the health benefits of breastfeeding by the mother both during pregnancy and immediately following the birth of her baby does not necessarily reflect the mother's choice to breastfeed. Inconsistent health promotion messages from providers compounds the issue. Women indicated that they relied on printed information rather than provider based discussions as their primary source. Additionally, women indicated that they considered themselves to have the most influence with regard to their infant feeding choice.

Conclusions: By finding pathways into the lives and decisions of new mothers, health promotion education with regard to breastfeeding may be better identified. This can lead to the development of programs that have a greater cultural congruence and thus a greater impact on the infant feeding choice made by new mothers. Additional research is needed that reflects the emic perspective of women of childbearing age and their health decisions and behaviors.

Description

39th Biennial Convention: Vision to Action: Global Health Through Collaboration

Author Details

Margaret-Rose Agostino, MSN, MSW, BA, RNC, IBCLC, Central NJ MCH Consortium, Inc/Kean University, Director, Education & Professional Development

Sigma Membership

Unknown

Lead Author Affiliation

Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland, USA

Type

Presentation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Descriptive/Correlational

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

EBN Research Utilization, Infant Feeding, New Mothers

Conference Name

39th Biennial Convention

Conference Host

Sigma Theta Tau International

Conference Location

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Conference Year

2007

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

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Infant feeding decision: What new mothers have told us

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Objective: To explore the infant feeding decision of new mothers and elicit their perspective regarding breastfeeding.

Design: Descriptive exploratory.

Setting: Postpartum units at seven birthing hospitals, including two tertiary perinatal centers in New Jersey and thirteen participant home telephone interviews.

Participants: 394 new mothers prior to hospital discharge; 13 interviewees including a total of eight African-American women, five who were non-WIC eligible and a total of five White women, three who were non-WIC eligible.

Main Outcome Measures: Central Jersey New Mother Survey, semi structured home telephone interviews.

Results: Knowledge regarding the health benefits of breastfeeding by the mother both during pregnancy and immediately following the birth of her baby does not necessarily reflect the mother's choice to breastfeed. Inconsistent health promotion messages from providers compounds the issue. Women indicated that they relied on printed information rather than provider based discussions as their primary source. Additionally, women indicated that they considered themselves to have the most influence with regard to their infant feeding choice.

Conclusions: By finding pathways into the lives and decisions of new mothers, health promotion education with regard to breastfeeding may be better identified. This can lead to the development of programs that have a greater cultural congruence and thus a greater impact on the infant feeding choice made by new mothers. Additional research is needed that reflects the emic perspective of women of childbearing age and their health decisions and behaviors.