Assessment of breastfeeding and related factors in three hospitals of Tehran, 2008

Breastfeeding is one of the important factors in infant’s health, safety and body and mental development that have many social, economical and health benefits for family and society. In spite of these advantages of breastfeeding and recommendations to exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months and continuation of it at least until 1 year with supplementary food, but still in our country the rate of breastfeeding is low. Current study accomplished with the purpose of determination the rate of breastfeeding and related factors, which affect it in Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences’ health centers and compare the results with available information from 1370-1386. In this cross sectional study 300 women with children aged 12 to 24 months were randomly selected and interviewed. Information regarding participants’ demographics and related factors on breastfeeding consists of level of education of parents, parents’ occupation, number of working days, training about breastfeeding and other factors were collected. Then knowledge and attitude of mothers regarding breastfeeding were assessed by using a questionnaire consists of 10 questions about knowledge and 16 question about attitude. Data was analyzed by SPSS software. The average age of mothers was 28.9±4.6 years, about 41.7% of them has finished the high school and 19.7% of mothers has worked out of home and among them just 22% in workplace had a specific place for breastfeeding. The result showed that 75.7% of mothers were exclusive breast feeders up to 4 months and just 27.4% of them did it up to 6 months. In 63.3% of infants supplementary feeding was started in 6 month and in 31.1% of them it was started before 6 months. Among them just 29.7% of mothers had good levels of knowledge but 95.7% of them had good attitudes regarding breastfeeding. Among related factors that affect breastfeeding, level of mother’s education had relation with length of exclusive breastfeeding inversely. Existence of a specific place for breastfeeding in workplaces leaded to increasing length of exclusive breastfeeding for 1 month. In spite of the fact that health ministry tried to increase the length of exclusive breastfeeding, but still we are far from the aim of a health community in 2010 that announced it should be near 50%.