COVID-19 and Its Relationship to Breastfeeding Patterns: A Systematic Review Study

Undoubtedly, breastfeeding has beneficial consequences for the health of infants and their mothers as well as many benefits for families. Restrictions, quarantine, and social distancing from COVID-19 have led to the separation of mothers and infants after birth. This study aims to consolidate the results of studies on the effects of COVID-19 on breastfeeding since the beginning of the pandemic.

A systematic review was conducted to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on breastfeeding. The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) standard guidelines were used to follow up the review process and report results. Based on this, from the beginning of December 2019 to January 30, 2023, all relevant articles were extracted from CINAHL, EMBASE, Medline, Cochrane CENTRAL, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and PubMed databases. Risk bias assessment of articles was performed using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal checklist.

Of the 110 articles searched, 11 articles on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on breastfeeding in 2020 and 2021 were finally included in the systematic review. COVID-19 hurt the breastfeeding process in various studies. Also, it led to adverse effects on maternal performance in neonatal care, change in the hospital admission procedure for delivery, no skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby at birth, hospitalization of the baby in a separate room, and no recommendation for breastfeeding.

Mother-baby separation hurts the mother-child relationship and can disrupt breastfeeding. Therefore, further studies should be conducted in this area to examine the possibility of vertical transmission of the COVID-19 virus through breast milk with more determination and to take effective steps to improve the health of mothers and children.