title: Barriers to breastfeeding: a qualitative study of the views of health professionals and lay counsellors.
abstract: Increasing breastfeeding initiation rates is now a target for the NHS. The attitudes and beliefs of health professionals are known to influence mothers' decisions to breastfeed. This paper describes a small qualitative study of health visitors' (n = 7), midwives' (n = 3) and lay breastfeeding counsellors' (n = 2) views of obstacles to breastfeeding. Interviews showed that day-to-day practice is informed by training and personal experience with research evidence having a more limited influence. Health professionals may experience tensions between these influences on their practice. Practical problems in accessing training make it difficult for health professionals to stay up-to-date with new evidence. Information from the study was used to develop a self-study training workbook for local health professionals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Birmingham.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tennant
authors.forename: Louise M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Wallace
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Law
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001942:Breast Feeding; D003152:Community Health Nursing; D003376:Counseling; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008880:Midwifery; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000193:education; D012944:Social Support; D006113:United Kingdom