Teaching New Mothers about Infant Feeding Cues May Increase Breastfeeding Duration

The objective of this pilot study was to compare two different methods of educating prenatal women regarding breastfeeding. Comparisons were made between traditional and innovative methods to determine which was more effective in increasing breastfeeding duration. Over a 32 month period, 197 prenatal women were assigned to either a control (C, n = 139) or an experimental (E, n = 51) group. The C group received standard breastfeeding education, while the E group received standard education in addition to information about infant hunger cues. Cox Regression and KaplanMeier analysis were performed. Estimated mean number of weeks for C and E groups to continue breastfeeding was 14.3 + 17.4 weeks and 18.5 + 17.1 weeks, respectively. At 26 weeks, duration of breastfeeding approached significance (chi square = 2.907, df = 1, p = 0.088), indicating probability of continuing to breastfeed was about 28% better for those in E group when compared to C group. Duration of breastfeeding may increase when prenatal women are taught to identify infant behavior such as hunger cues.