Breastfeeding training for health professionals and resultant changes in breastfeeding duration

Promotion of breastfeeding in Brazilian maternity hospitals.

To quantify changes in the breastfeeding duration among mothers served by hospitals exposed to the Wellstart-SLC course, comparing them with changes among mothers attended by institutions not exposed to this course.

Randomized Institutional Trial.

The effects of training on breastfeeding duration was assessed in eight Brazilian hospitals assigned at random to either an exposed group (staff attending the Wellstart-SLC course) or a control group.

For each of the eight study hospitals, two cohorts of about 50 children were visited at home at one and six months after birth. The first cohort (n = 494) was composed of babies born in the month prior to exposure to the Wellstart-SLC course, and the second cohort (n = 476) was composed of babies born six months subsequent to this exposure.

Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted to describe the weaning process and log-rank tests were used to assess statistical differences among survival curves. Hazard ratio (HR) estimates were calculated by fitting Cox proportional hazard regression models to the data.

The increases in estimated, adjusted rates for children born in hospitals with trained personnel were 29% (HR = 0.71) and 20% (HR = 0.80) for exclusive and full breastfeeding, respectively. No changes were identified for total breastfeeding.

This randomized trial supports a growing body of evidence that training hospital health professionals in breastfeeding promotion and protection results in an increase in breastfeeding duration.