title: Swimming upstream: breastfeeding care in a nonbreastfeeding culture.
abstract: Women once gave birth and began breastfeeding within the cultural context of a traditional system of care; now they begin breastfeeding in a hospital. Historically, hospital care was arranged to fit artificial feeding. Little was known about the science of breastfeeding until recently. Basing our breastfeeding care on the cultural norm of bottle feeding has led to the development of many unfavorable attitudes and practices. Given an opportunity to learn how breastfeeding works and to improve our breastfeeding care skills, hospital nurses can play an important part in current efforts to make breastfeeding the community norm.
authors.affiliation: Breastfeeding Center at Crozer Chester Medical Center, Upland, PA, USA.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mulford
mesh_terms: D001903:Bottle Feeding; D001942:Breast Feeding; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D016389:Maternal-Child Nursing; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012657:Self-Help Groups; D014481:United States