APGO

Posters
Dilfuza Nuritnidova, MD

Ilana Taubman, RN, Abraham Hamaoui, MD, Ray Mercado, DO

Background: Improving breastfeeding rates is an effective way to promote the overall health of infants and their mothers. However, many mothers, particularly in our community of minority inner city population, do not choose to breastfeed, let alone breastfeed exclusively. Providers’ attitudes are known to influence mothers’ decisions regarding initiation and duration of breastfeeding.

Objective: The study initially determines the attitude toward breastfeeding by the participants and then examines the possibility of the educational course originally designed by UNICEF/WHO and Baby Friendly USA for nursing staff, to influence participants’ attitudes. The course was modified to include topics and activities that are designed to elicit interaction and discussions regarding attitudes towards breastfeeding. The study will evaluate whether the modified course affected attitudes towards breastfeeding.

Methods: The study utilized the “Iowa Infant Feeding Scale” tool to assess participants’ attitudes toward infant feeding. Scores below 49 reveal that participants favor formula feeding, while those with scores above 70 favor breastfeeding. Significance was determined by the chi square test. RESULTS: The pre-test indicated that 57.86% of participants were neutral toward breastfeeding and 39.28% had a positive attitude towards breastfeeding. After the course, 30.87% of participants were neutral toward breastfeeding and 68.46% of participants had a positive attitude towards breastfeeding (p<0.0001). Looking at the raw value of their feeding scales, we find that a majority of participants (78.95%) had a more positive attitude to breastfeeding after the course.

Conclusions: The data above suggest that the course modified by including interactive learning was found to have modified attitudes to favor breastfeeding by the participants. It is also possible that other factors, not taken in account may have favor this change of attitude, such as new information was made available to the participants and/or the convincing presence and attitude of the instructors. New studies may clarify these and other factors for change. However, the findings suggest that an educational interactive course may serve as a resource for changing institutional culture as to breastfeeding.