Abstract

BackgroundThe risks of not breastfeeding for mother and infant are well established, yet in Australia, although most women initiate breastfeeding many discontinue breastfeeding altogether and few women exclusively breastfeed to six months as recommended by the World Health Organization and Australian health authorities. We aim to determine whether proactive telephone peer support during the postnatal period increases the proportion of infants who are breastfed at six months, replicating a trial previously found to be effective in Canada.Design/MethodsA two arm randomised controlled trial will be conducted, recruiting primiparous women who have recently given birth to a live baby, are proficient in English and are breastfeeding or intending to breastfeed. Women will be recruited in the postnatal wards of three hospitals in Melbourne, Australia and will be randomised to peer support or to ‘usual’ care. All women recruited to the trial will receive usual hospital postnatal care and infant feeding support. For the intervention group, peers will make two telephone calls within the first ten days postpartum, then weekly telephone calls until week twelve, with continued contact until six months postpartum. Primary aim: to determine whether postnatal telephone peer support increases the proportion of infants who are breastfed for at least six months. Hypothesis: that telephone peer support in the postnatal period will increase the proportion of infants receiving any breast milk at six months by 10% compared with usual care (from 46% to 56%).Outcome data will be analysed by intention to treat. A supplementary multivariate analysis will be undertaken if there are any baseline differences in the characteristics of women in the two groups which might be associated with the primary outcomes.DiscussionThe costs and health burdens of not breastfeeding fall disproportionately and increasingly on disadvantaged groups. We have therefore deliberately chosen trial sites which have a high proportion of women from disadvantaged backgrounds. This will be the first Australian randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of proactive peer telephone support for breastfeeding.Trial registrationAustralian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12612001024831.

Highlights

  • The risks of not breastfeeding for mother and infant are well established, yet in Australia, most women initiate breastfeeding many discontinue breastfeeding altogether and few women exclusively breastfeed to six months as recommended by the World Health Organization and Australian health authorities

  • The latest national infant feeding survey in Australia, conducted in 2010, found that 96% of children initiated breastfeeding, only 15% were exclusively breastfed to six months, with 60% receiving any breast milk at six months [8]

  • In Australia, we have reported the widening gap in breastfeeding rates between more and less advantaged women from the 1990s to 2004/2005 [11]

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Summary

Introduction

The risks of not breastfeeding for mother and infant are well established, yet in Australia, most women initiate breastfeeding many discontinue breastfeeding altogether and few women exclusively breastfeed to six months as recommended by the World Health Organization and Australian health authorities. The risks of not breastfeeding for both mother and infant are well established, yet in Australia, most women initiate breastfeeding, many discontinue breastfeeding altogether and few women exclusively breastfeed to six months as recommended by the World Health Organization and Australian health authorities [1,2]. The latest national infant feeding survey in Australia, conducted in 2010, found that 96% of children initiated breastfeeding, only 15% were exclusively breastfed to six months, with 60% receiving any breast milk at six months [8]. In a randomised controlled trial (RCT) by members of the current research group, only eight percent of infants received exclusively breast milk (no solids and no other fluids) to six months [9]

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