A critical analysis of the content of the tools that measure breast-feeding interaction.
OBJECTIVE
To undertake a critical analysis of the content of six tools, which have been designed to evaluate the breast-feeding interaction.


METHODS
The tools are viewed as discourses and are examined in terms of the insight they give into the assumptions about and attitudes towards breast-feeding inherent in the authors who have produced them.


RESULTS
The findings indicate that there is little agreement between the existing breast-feeding assessment tools as to how to measure a successful breast feed and that the tools appear to place insufficient reliance upon the research evidence related to lactation.


CONCLUSIONS
The lack of commonality between evaluation tools appears to reflect a prevailing inconsistency in the advice given by health workers to breast-feeding mothers. Reports of their unreliability may be indicative of the problems inherent when attempting to impose a biomedical model upon an intrinsically natural interaction.


CONCLUSIONS
It is suggested that, if evaluations of the breast-feeding interaction are to be useful, a tool which places greater emphasis on the research evidence is called for. Otherwise, given the limitations of such tools, their use may actively hinder the establishment of successful breast feeding.
Moran
V H
VH
Department of Midwifery Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PRI 2HE, UK.
Dinwoodie
K
K
Bramwell
R
R
Dykes
F
F
D001942:Breast Feeding; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007224:Infant Care / Q000592:standards*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D017064:Process Assessment, Health Care; D006113:United Kingdom