title: The Ife South Breastfeeding Project: training community health extension workers to promote and manage breastfeeding in rural communities.
abstract: Reported are the results of a project to promote exclusive breastfeeding in rural communities through the training of community health extension workers in rural Nigeria. A workshop for the trainers was organized for health workers in the study area; subsequently, these trainers ran district-level training workshops. In the study area perinatal facilities, early initiation of breastfeeding has increased compared with those in the control area (P < 0.001). Also, the trained health workers had significantly better knowledge about breastfeeding than their untrained colleagues in both the study (P < 0.001) and control areas (P < 0.001), and more often recommended timely initiation and exclusive breastfeeding than the controls (P < 0.001). A multivariate analysis showed that the training programme and the study area were the only significant variables that were predictors of breastfeeding knowledge (P < 0.001). Appropriate education of health extension workers can therefore contribute significantly to the promotion of breastfeeding in rural communities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health, College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Davies-Adetugbo
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Adebawa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001942:Breast Feeding; D003150:Community Health Workers / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009549:Nigeria; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012424:Rural Population; D012984:Software