[Educational intervention on breastfeeding promotion to the Family Health Program team]

Breastfeeding Friendly Primary Care Initiative comprises educational activities focused on primary care units. The To evaluate the effectiveness of a strategy on breastfeeding promotion to the Family Health Program team.

A controlled intervention study was performed with 20 family health care teams randomly selected into intervention and control group in Montes Claros, Southeastern Brazil, in 2006. The teams randomly selected into intervention and control group, and the intervention group took part in a 24-hour training program on breastfeeding promotion for health providers, modeled on the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. It was emphasized health provider's support for breastfeeding and management of major lactation problems. The control group received routine breastfeeding training. Mothers of all children under two cared by the teams were interviewed at home before (n=1,423) and 12 months after the intervention (n=1,491) and answered questions about breastfeeding practices. Survival curves of breastfeeding were plotted and compared for both time points studied using the log rank test.

There was a significant increase in exclusive breastfeeding after the educational activities for the Family Health Program teams. Survival curves of exclusive breastfeeding at the fi rst time point studied showed no statistical significance difference between the groups by log rank test (p=0.502). After the intervention, survival curves of exclusive breastfeeding were significantly different by the log rank test (p=0.001).

The training of Family Health Program teams as proposed by the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative proved to be an effective, low-cost strategy for raising awareness among health providers, providing consistent information, and assuring the required support to mothers with breastfeeding issues.