A prospective study of awareness of breastfeeding among rural women from tagarapuvalasa

Background: World Health Organization advocates exclusive breastfeeding for six months. Promotion and support of breastfeeding is a global priority and is important child-survival intervention. Existing antenatal counseling on breastfeeding is inadequate in the population studied and which needs strengthening. Some of these problems can overcome by a) Antenatal women are informed about the benefits of breastfeeding b) Prepare herself mentally for exclusive breastfeeding. c) Health care providers (Nurses, Medical officers, Specialists, Neonatologists and House surgeons) need education training on breastfeeding support and management. This study was taken up to identify the awareness, to remove misconceptions and to counsel them regarding breast feeding techniques. The sample is Antenatal mothers from rural areas attending Department of Obstetrics, NRIMS, Sangivalasa. This programme initially started at Main hospital, and later was extended to UHC and RHC attached to hospital around Tagarapuvalasa from 2012. During Antenatal visits the anatomical defects like retracted nipples and other abnormalities identified. A pro-forma was made and the women were grouped in to primies and multiparous women. Most of the multi parous women fed their babies after 3 days, they never took normal diet till third day postpartum which prompted to initiate this study. Most of the women who deliver have lot of misbelieves individually or by the influence of others like- mother, mother-in-law, friends, neighbours and sister-in-law. It is general observation that most of these women have information that breast feeding should start 3 days after delivery. A pro-forma was made in local language and results were tabulated for 100 women out of whom 87% were aware of importance of breastfeeding, 13% were unaware of importance of breast feeding. Most of them had doubts regarding frequency, duration and adequacy of breast feeding. The results were tabulated according to the answers.