Current Pediatric Research

Background: Breastfeeding is the usual way of providing infants with adequate, pollution free and sustainable nutrients needed for growth and development. Many mothers experience barriers to achieve their breastfeeding goals, leading to reduced rates of breastfeeding initiation and continuation.

Aim: Assess the barriers of breastfeeding in the first year of life.

Design: A descriptive research design was utilized to achieve the aim of this study.

Setting: The study was conducted at immunization outpatient clinic in Dar Salama Abdullah maternal and child health center in Sohag City.

Sample: A purposive sample of 120 mothers having infants from birth to 12 months old and not suffering from mental or physical diseases.

Tool: A structured interview questionnaire to collect data regarding characteristics of mothers and their infants, history of infant feeding, knowledge of mothers about breastfeeding and barriers of breastfeeding related to mothers and their infants.

Results: Nearly half of the studied mothers have poor knowledge about breastfeeding and one third of them reported an average knowledge about breastfeeding and more than three quarters of them reported that premature infants, embarrassment from breastfeeding in public places and sore or cracked nipple were barriers to breastfeeding.

Conclusion: Most common barriers of breastfeeding related to mothers were pain during breastfeeding, sore or cracked nipples, breast engorgement, perception of insufficient milk supply, embarrassment from breastfeeding in public places, cesarean section, immunosuppressant’s, returning to work after delivery and breast cancer. Meanwhile the most common barriers related to infants were cleft lip, cleft palate, premature infants and breast refusal. Also, there were statistically significant differences between mothers’ barriers of breastfeeding and some of their characteristics. Recommendation: Early detection and adequate management of barriers hindering breastfeeding of infants in the first year of life.

Author(s): Elham Atef Abdelazeem*, Wafaa El Sayed Ouda, Safaa Salah Ismail

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