The attitudes of primary school children to breastfeeding and the effect of health education lectures.
OBJECTIVE
To assess attitudes to breastfeeding among children in primary education and to evaluate the influence of educational lectures on their knowledge.


METHODS
This was a cross-sectional study of 503 students of both sexes from the fourth to the eighth grades of five different schools. The children were divided into two groups: control (n = 215) and intervention (n = 288) in order to evaluate the influence of educational lectures. A questionnaire containing 30 questions about different features of breastfeeding was used for data collection. The intervention took the form of a 30-minute lecture, given at the schools.


RESULTS
The lecture increased the number of schoolchildren who answered that breastmilk is most beneficial for infants (p < 0.05) and that breastfeeding is the most practical way of feeding babies (p < 0.05). There was a reduction in the number who would give supplementary feeding during the first month of life (p < 0.05) and also in how many would give a baby a pacifier (p < 0.05). After the intervention less than half of the girls would chose to breastfeed for 1 year or more (39.1% in the control group vs. 43.2% in the intervention group); while the opposite was true of the males (54.7% in the control group vs. 51.7% in the intervention group). More of the boys (37.1%) were able to cite specific advantages for mothers from breastfeeding when compared to the females (19.9%).


CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that lectures on health education, presented at schools, have a beneficial effect on breastfeeding knowledge, awareness and attitudes.
Acadêmica de Farmácia, Instituto Universitário do Araguaia, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, Pontal do Araguaia, MT.
Mahmi
M
Fujimori
Tassiane C
TC
Morais
Eduardo L
EL
França
Olegário R
OR
de Toledo
Adenilda C
AC
Honório-França
D001942:Breast Feeding / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires