Effect of Prenatal and Postnatal Breastfeeding Education on Breastfeeding Duration

Abstract

Breastfeeding is beneficial to infants and mothers because it may protect them from developing different diseases and conditions. For example, breastfed infants have a lowered risk of developing “asthma, obesity, type 2 diabetes, ear and respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome, and gastrointestinal infections” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). The benefits breastfeeding mothers receive include a reduced risk of developing “high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, ovarian cancer, and breast cancer” (CDC, 2019). Healthy People 2020’s goal is to “increase the proportion of infants who are breastfed six months” to 60.6% (CDC, 2018). Currently in the United States, the percentage of infants who are breastfed through six months is 57.6% (CDC, 2018). One intervention that can be implemented in order to increase the duration that infants are breastfed is patient education. Is prenatal or postnatal education more effective in increasing the duration of breastfeeding? Prenatal breastfeeding education is given during pregnancy, whereas postnatal breastfeeding education is given after the baby is born. The purpose of this brief is to examine how effective these breastfeeding education types are on the duration of breastfeeding. The results may provide insight as to whether prenatal or postnatal breastfeeding education will increase breastfeeding duration more effectively. Nurses can use this information in the nursing process to plan, implement, and evaluate.