The Relationship between Mothers’ Empowerment in Breastfeeding with Exclusive Breast Feeding in Infants

Exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months has a positive effect on the maternal and the child health. In the Qur'an had also been mentioned to the nutrition of infant with breastfeeding. Knowing the effective factors on it has significant role in promoting exclusive breastfeeding policy. This study aimed to investigate relationship between the mothers’ empowerment in breastfeeding with exclusive breastfeeding and identification of related demographic-reproductive factors. The cross-sectional study was done on 370 mothers with a six-month-old child admitted to the primary health care centers in Noor Township. Mothers were categorized according to type of breastfeeding to two the exclusive breastfeeding and the non-exclusive breastfeeding groups. The mothers’ empowerment in breastfeeding was assessed by breastfeeding empowerment questionnaire. The questionnaire includes seven domains of knowledge, attitude, skills of proper breastfeeding technique, skills of preventing and solving breastfeeding problems, breastfeeding sufficiency, receiving family support and Breastfeeding self-efficacy with probability total score in range of 45 to 225. The mean total score of the mothers’ empowerment domains in breastfeeding in the exclusive breastfeeding group (202.70±13.12) is significantly higher than the non-exclusive breastfeeding group (160.59±27.82) (p=0.015). In the final analysis after entering variables in the logistic regression model, the breastfeeding empowerment’s domains including; attitude (OR=1.688, CI-95%=1.137-2.506, p=0.009), skills of proper breastfeeding technique (OR=1.471, CI-95%=1.078-2.007, p=0.015), skills of preventing and solving breastfeeding problems (OR=1.521, CI-95%=1.099-2.106, p=0.011), breastfeeding sufficiency (OR=5.150, CI-95%=2.707-9.795, p=0.001), receiving family support (OR=1.636, CI-95%=1.184-2.260, p=0.003) and Breastfeeding self-efficacy (OR=1.113, CI-95%=1.088-1.139, p=0.001) were found as significant related factors.   The findings of the study showed that knowledge alone cannot increase the prevalence of breastfeeding, but should also focus on other domains of mothers' empowerment, especially the belief to breastfeeding sufficiency in mothers.