Evaluating a bilingual video to improve infant feeding knowledge and behavior among immigrant Latina mothers

Childhood obesity is recognized as a major health problem in the United States and is occurring at ever younger ages. While most prevention efforts are aimed at school-age children, this project focuses on the caregivers of children from 0 to 24 months of age. This study is an evaluation of an educational English/Spanish infant feeding video, distributed for home viewing at one New York City Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) center (video group) but not at three others (comparison group). Baseline, 3 and 6 month infant feeding knowledge and behavior surveys were conducted. For this report, analyses are restricted to Latina immigrant mothers. The video and comparison group mothers were similar in age, education, and parity. The video group was more likely to speak Spanish at home, and had lower knowledge scores at baseline. At the 6 month follow-up, knowledge increased for both groups, but the video group showed a greater increase in knowledge between baseline and 6 months: in ordered logistic regression analyses the video group had a 1.7 times greater score increase at each outcome level. The video group also showed positive changes in behavior-later age at first solid feeding was observed in the video group. We found that an inexpensive, low-intensity video intervention can positively impact maternal knowledge and behavior related to infant feeding among immigrant Latinas. Attention should be given to intervening early with high-risk populations.