Effects of in-hospital health education during pregnancy on breastfeeding

Abstract

The status of breastfeeding and in-hospital health education during pregnancy was surveyed in 32 maternity and children health care hospitals at provincial and municipal levels. A total of 1105 cases were assigned into hospital health education (A, n=872) and control (B, n=233) groups according to whether the women received the hospital health education of breastfeeding during pregnancy. Their differences in breastfeeding knowledge, attitudes and early feeding behavior were compared and analyzed by χ2 test and binary logistic regression. Mothers in the group A were at higher levels of breastfeeding knowledge and had a higher proportion of breastfeeding at Day 1 (82.3%). The rate of exclusive breastfeeding in-hospital was significantly higher in group A than that in group B (51.1% vs. 32.3%). After adjusting for in-hospital health education, health education during pregnancy had significant effects on breastfeeding in the first days for group A: breastfeeding in the first 24 hour (OR=2.076, 95%CI: 1.474-2.924) and exclusive in-hospital breastfeeding (OR=2.105, 95%CI: 1.529-2.898). Key words: Breast feeding; Health education