Mothers’ Knowledge and Attitude toward Exclusive Breastfeeding

Introduction: Exclusive breastfeeding protects infants from diseases in the first 6-months of life. Awareness and attitude affect breastfeeding performance.This study assessed maternal awareness and attitude toward breastfeeding in Alzahra Hospital, a baby friendly, in Rasht, Iran. Objectives: To determine knowledge and attitudes of mothers on various aspects of breastfeeding and factors related to them among mothers under postpartum, Alzahra educational, medical and research center. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 384 post-natal mothers. It was done by sampling and simple random in post-partom unit of Alzahra Hospital, Rasht. A questionnaire consisting of 3 main parts; demographic information, knowledge and attitude, was used in the study. Attitude and knowledge scores were also calculated. Data were analyzed by Man-Whitney, Kurskal-Wallis and Spearman Correlation Coefficient tests, using SPSS-software in version21. Results: In this study, 32.6% had good levels of knowledge about breastfeeding and majority of them (39.1%) had an average knowledge. All of mothers had positive attitude, but 20.3% of mothers had more positive attitude and most of individuals (67.2%) were in the intermediate state and the rest had a more negative attitude. In the multivariate analysis in the regression logestic model attitude status (P<0.0001), experience of breastfeeding(P=0.006), breastfeeding training (P=0.004), income (P=0.03) and mother’s job (P=0.001) were anticipating factors of high knowledge, and the status of knowledge(P=0.043), mothers’education(P=0.004), natural delivery compared to cesarean section  (P=0.008), type of infant’s feeding (P=0.0001) were anticipating factors related to positive attitude status. Also, a significant poor positive relationship was found between age and the score of knowledge (r=0.158, P=0.002) and attitude (r=0.128, P=0.062). Conclusion: A significant number of mothers had moderate knowledge about breastfeeding, which necessitates intervention programming, especially for mothers with low levels of education.