Impact of an Educational Intervention on Breastfeeding Counseling Behavior of OB/GYN Residents

Breastfeeding counseling has been shown to increase the initiation and duration of breastfeeding. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists calls for all healthcare workers to educate and encourage women to choose breastfeeding. Despite these recommendations, the reported incidence of prenatal breastfeeding discussions varies widely. Lack of physician education has been speculated to be one of the contributing factors.

To assess the impact of a breastfeeding educational intervention on the knowledge and counseling behaviors of OB/GYN resident physicians.

Resident physicians in a university-based OB/GYN program were given two lectures on the benefits of breastfeeding and common lactation issues. The residents completed a knowledge test before and after the educational intervention. Resident behaviors were assessed through patient surveys after the initial prenatal visit (n = 79 and n = 81 before and after the educational sessions, respectively). The responses were then analyzed by comparing binomial proportions before and after the intervention.

Patient surveys showed that the educational intervention resulted in statistically significant increases in the rate of general discussion from 62% to 79% (p = 0.017) and discussion of breast changes that occur during pregnancy from 41% to 57% (p = 0.037). There was a positive trend for breastfeeding promotion from 58% to 72% (p = 0.08) and for breast exams from 42% to 56% (p = 0.08). The median score on resident's knowledge assessment test increased marginally from 20 to 20.5 out of 28 questions after the educational intervention.

Our study showed that a brief educational intervention on breastfeeding had a meaningful impact on OB/GYN resident physician counseling behavior.