Effect of an extended midwifery postnatal support programme on the duration of breast feeding: a randomised
Susan J McDonald1, Jennifer J Henderson, Shani Faulkner
1La Trobe University, Vic., Australia; Women and Infants Research Foundation, WA, Australia.
Objective:
to evaluate the effects of an extended midwifery support (EMS) programme on the proportion of women who breast feed fully to six months.
Design:
randomised controlled trial.
Setting:
large public teaching hospital in Australia.
Participants:
849 women who had given birth to a healthy, term, singleton baby and who wished to breast feed.
Intervention:
participants were allocated at random to EMS, in which they were offered a one-to-one postnatal educational session and weekly home visits with additional telephone contact by a midwife until their baby was six weeks old; or standard postnatal midwifery support (SMS). Participants were stratified for parity and tertiary education.
Measurements:
the main outcome measures were prevalence of full and any breast feeding at six months postpartum.
Findings:
there was no difference between the groups at six months postpartum for either full breast feeding [EMS 43.3% versus SMS 42.5%, relative risk (RR) 1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.87-1.19] or any breast feeding (EMS 63.9% versus SMS 67.9%, RR 0.94, 95%CI 0.85-1.04).
Conclusions:
the EMS programme did not succeed in improving breast-feeding rates in a setting where there was high initiation of breast feeding. Breast-feeding rates were high but still fell short of national goals.
Implications For Practice:
continuing research of programmes designed to promote breast feeding is required in view of the advantages of breast feeding for all mothers and babies.
