Skilled Counseling in Enhancing Early and Exclusive Breastfeeding Rates: An Experimental Study in an Urban Population in India

Abstract

The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of breastfeeding counseling and breastfeeding support by trained counselors during the ante-natal period at health facility and post-natal period at home on breastfeeding practices during the first six months of life. This was a randomized controlled study that compared the effect of counseling on breastfeeding during the first 6 months of life. study was done in a government medical college in northern India, which is situated in an urban area. 300 healthy pregnant women from an urban population attending the antenatal clinic at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University were recruited for the study. Subjects were equally assigned randomly to the intervention (2 antenatal and 8 postpartum home counseling visits by the counselors) and control (non-counseling) group. Infant feeding practices including rates of initiation of the breastfeeding within one hour of birth; exclusive breastfeeding and bottle-feeding during the first 6 months of life. Initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth was 73.4% in intervention group as compared to 33.6% in control group (P=0.001). More mothers in the intervention group (88.2%) were able to sustain exclusive breastfeeding rates at 6 months of age in comparison to the control group (50%) (OR 7.44, 95% CI 3.98-13.92). This study substantiates positive role of skilled counseling by a trained dedicated breastfeeding counselor during the antenatal and post-natal periods on breastfeeding practices during the first six months of life.