Open AccessObstacles to and motivation for successful breast-feeding
Author(s) -
Bergh Am
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
curationis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.408
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2223-6279
pISSN - 0379-8577
DOI - 10.4102/curationis.v16i2.1394
Subject(s) - breast feeding , psychology , anxiety , economic shortage , perception , health professionals , nursing , social psychology , medicine , applied psychology , developmental psychology , health care , psychiatry , pediatrics , political science , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience , government (linguistics) , law
This study determined obstetric physiotherapists' perceptions about major obstacles to and methods of motivation for successful breast-feeding by means of the Friedman non-parametric procedure for the two-way analysis of variance. Three categories of obstacles were identified: maternal obstacles, health professionals and society. Maternal obstacles mentioned most were insufficient motivation (25%) and knowledge (24%), anxiety (14%), fatigue (14%), and employment (14%). Obstacles related to health professionals included lack of support for mothers (20%), inappropriate lactation management (19%), lack of knowledge (15%), negative attitudes (5%), and staff shortages (5%). With regard to society, lack of support (27%) and life-styles (29%) were identified as significant obstacles. The two most significantly important methods of motivation were information and education (53%) and contact with other breast-feeders (27%). It is concluded that breast-feeding education efforts can be improved by identifying obstacles to breast-feeding and methods of motivation and that the Friedman test may be a statistical procedure to consider for determining priorities.