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Facilitators and barriers to implementing mother‐to‐mother support groups to improve breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices in the Peruvian highlands
Author(s) -
Shaw Alina Gauntlett,
Campos Manolo Quispe,
Leon Lia Garcia,
Girard Aimee Webb,
Golding Lenette
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.368.8
Subject(s) - breastfeeding , focus group , attendance , government (linguistics) , nursing , quality (philosophy) , incentive , formative assessment , psychology , malnutrition , medicine , business , economic growth , pediatrics , marketing , pedagogy , economics , linguistics , philosophy , epistemology , microeconomics
Mother‐to‐mother support groups (MtMSGs) provide women with a constructive environment in which they can learn about proper breastfeeding practices. Early initiation and prevalence of breastfeeding in Peru are high; however, exclusive breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding practices are sub‐optimal and lead to high rates of malnutrition in Andean communities. Prior to initiating MtMSGs as a key component of their infant and young child feeding (IYCF) programming in Ayacucho, CARE conducted formative qualitative research to determine implementation strategies. Three focus group discussions, 84 doer/non‐doer surveys, and ten key informant interviews took place in four communities. The data indicate that government programs such as Juntos and Vaso de Leche organize social groups for women, which could serve as a barrier to CARE's use of MtMSGs because they incentivize attendance with conditional cash transfers or cans of milk, incentives that CARE does not offer. However, women expressed interest in participating in MtMSGs even if they only received information about ways to improve the nutritional status of their families, as long as the groups had strong leadership. Moving forward, it is important for CARE to engage women in MtMSGs by providing communities with relevant IYCF content and quality group leaders who facilitate productive conversation among participants. Grant Funding Source : CARE Internatioal