Prenatal breastfeeding education and breastfeeding outcomes.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the impact of various breastfeeding outcomes of three cohorts receiving different methods of prenatal breastfeeding education.


METHODS
Retrospective cohort design with patients attending a breastfeeding education class at an Army medical center. Controls were matched for sponsor rank, marital status, and smoking status. One hundred ninety-four mothers who expressed intent to breastfeed received breastfeeding education as follows: (a) a class that used video demonstration and group teaching by a lactation consultant, (b) a new mothers' support group with one-on-one teaching prenatally and weekly meetings postpartum, taught by a lactation consultant and a pediatrician, and (c) a control group educated at prenatal visits only. Descriptive statistics, chi-square, ANOVA, unpaired t test, and logistic regression were used to analyze the data.


RESULTS
Women who attended prenatal breastfeeding classes had significantly increased breastfeeding at 6 months when compared to controls (p = .01). There was no significant difference in rates between types of classes offered (p = .45).


CONCLUSIONS
Prenatal breastfeeding education can influence the amount of time women breastfeed. All providers of prenatal care should consider offering such classes in order to improve breastfeeding rates.
Rosen
Irene M
IM
Department of Family Medicine, Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma, WA, USA. irene87@aol.com
Krueger
Mary V
MV
Carney
Lorraine M
LM
Graham
Judith A
JA