The Effectiveness of Antenatal Nursing Intervention on Initiation, Exclusivity, and Continuity of Breastfeeding

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of an educational breastfeeding intervention on initiation, continuation, and exclusivity of breastfeeding. In this experimental study 130 pregnant women who attended a primary health care center in Erbil city/Iraqi Kurdistan, between March 2018 and July 2018 were enrolled. They randomly allocated to either an experimental (n=65) or control (n=65) group. The participants assigned to the experimental group received two antenatal breastfeeding educational sessions. Outcome measurements (initiation, exclusivity, and continuation of breastfeeding) were assessed by a researcher, who was blind to groups’ allocation. The percentage of subjects in the experimental group who began breastfeeding within one hour after delivery was significantly higher in the experimental group (75.0% vs. 39.4%, in the control groups, P=.004). Two months after delivery, proportion of women who practiced exclusive breastfeeding were (67.7% in experimental group compared to 40.0% in the control groups, P=.082), and for continuity of breastfeeding the majority of the subjects in the control (86.7%) and the experimental group (93.5%) were still breastfeeders (P=.425). An educational nursing intervention during the third trimester of pregnancy is an effective technique for increasing breastfeeding initiation, while it is less effective for breastfeeding exclusivity and continuation.