title: Variations in breast feeding advice, a telephone survey of community midwives and health visitors.
abstract: Although 65% of mothers start breast feeding their baby, at six weeks after birth this proportion has dropped to 40%. It is postulated that one of the causes of this decrease might be that women receive conflicting advice from professionals. To examine this hypothesis, a telephone survey was designed to compare a random sample of community midwives (CMs) and a random sample of health visitors (HVs), in regard to the advice they would offer to breast feeding women, and the resources available to help them. On many topics, the advice likely to be offered by the two groups was markedly different. The CMs tended to be more uniform in their advice, which generally followed the Royal College of Midwives' booklet entitled Present Day Practice in Infant Feeding. Both groups recognised the value of lay breast-feeding counsellors, and there was much support for collaboration in the production of a guidance document on breast feeding.
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Chalmers
mesh_terms: D001942:Breast Feeding; D003152:Community Health Nursing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008880:Midwifery; D009035:Mothers; D010290:Parents / Q000193:education*; D012606:Scotland; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013689:Telephone