Human milk has the best impact on childhood survival. In Ghana, it is estimated that 43% of women exclusively breastfeed for 0–5 months and only 42% of breastfeeding mothers continue through 20–23 months. Although the Ghanaian government has implemented policies to facilitate exclusive breastfeeding, substantial gaps to achieve optimal newborn health and wellbeing remain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate breastfeeding prevalence and human milk sharing practices among Ghanaian women. Qualitative responses were received from Ghanaian females (n = 1050). In our sample, 81% indicated they breastfed their children and 8% reported ever sharing breastmilk with another mother. Reasons for sharing milk included (i) insufficient breastmilk production of the recipient mother, and (ii) mother’s unavailability prompting women to offer their milk to a crying baby. About 60% of our sample reported that they were not concerned about sharing their milk. Findings present a strong indicator for milk donation towards the establishment of a human milk bank in Ghana. Health promotion efforts should aim at increasing education about the risks involved in milk sharing as well as the benefits of human milk donation through formal and safer channels such as a Human Milk Bank.

Introduction Although debate remains about the saliency and relevance of pro‐choice and pro‐life labels (as abortion belief indicators), they have been consistently used for decades to broadly designate abortion identity. However, clear labels are less apparent in other languages (e.g., Spanish). Social media, as an exploratory data science tool, can be leveraged to identify the presence and popularity of online abortion identity labels and how they are contextualized online. Purpose This study aims to determine how popularly used Spanish‐language pro‐choice and pro‐life identity labels are contextualized online. Method We used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic models, an unsupervised natural language processing (NLP) application, to generate themes about Spanish language tweets categorized by Spanish abortion identity labels: (1) proelección (pro‐choice); (2) derecho a decidir (right to choose); (3) proaborto (pro‐abortion); (4) provida (pro‐life); (5) antiaborto (anti‐abortion); and (6) derecho a vivir (right to life). We manually reviewed themes for each identity label to assess scope. Results All six identity labels included in our analysis contained some references to abortion. However, several labels were not exclusive to abortion. Proelección (pro‐choice), for example, contained several themes related to ongoing presidential elections. Discussion and Conclusion No singular Spanish abortion identity label encapsulates abortion beliefs; however, there are several viable options. Just as the debate remains ongoing about pro‐choice and pro‐life as accurate indicators of abortion beliefs in English, we must also consider that identity is more complex than binary labels in Spanish.

Human donor milk from established milk banks is the safest alternative to mother’s own milk. The current study examined US mothers’ perceptions of human milk banks as a response to the ongoing infant formula shortage in the United States. A cross-sectional study with closed and open-ended items was administered through nine Facebook groups, and a final sample of 863 responses was retained in the study. We used descriptive and inferential statistics for statistical analysis, and content and thematic analyses were conducted on open-ended responses. In our sample, 77.4% of respondents perceived human milk banking as a feasible response to the formula shortage crisis. Marital status, education, religion, and willingness to donate milk were associated with respondent perceptions of milk banking as a response to the formula shortage. US mothers’ concerns around the accessibility of milk banks and the cost of human milk were the primary reasons accounting for the hesitancy toward milk banking as a response to the infant formula shortage crisis. The study findings indicate support for milk banking as a potential ‘temporary’ solution to the formula shortage and reveal that milk banking is a tool that is currently being underutilized. It is imperative that stakeholders address the challenges identified by the current study to improve infant feeding and health.

Background: Ghanaian female youth aged 15-24 years are especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) compared to their male counterparts.Objectives: This study examined the association between educational attainment and risky sexual behavior among Ghanaian female youth. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a nationally representative sample of youth from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (n=1702). The outcome of interest was risky sexual behavior, defined as having last intercourse with a non-marital partner without condoms. Descriptive and inferential statistical tests were utilized. Results: Overall, the prevalence of risky sexual behavior was 66.9%. In the bivariate analysis, risky sexual behavior differed by level of education. Compared to women with a college-level education, a significantly higher proportion of women with secondary education reported risky sexual behavior (72.9%), followed by those with primary education (65.7%) (p<0.001). In the multivariable-adjusted model, there was a significant interaction between education and household wealth index (P =0.030) and between education and the type of place of residence (P =0.045) on risky sexual behavior. Conclusion: Culturally appropriate and targeted interventions are warranted to increase condom use among these subgroups and curb the rising rates of STIs among Ghanaian female youth. Keywords: Ghanaian youth; risky sexual behavior; educational attainment.

Background: In Ghana, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the government’s decision to shut down schools for nearly nine months. This study explores the experiences of preschool teachers in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The study was carried out using the Qualitative Description approach and aspects of Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory. Twenty-five teachers agreed to carry out face-to-face interviews with the researchers. An audio recorder device was used to record the interviews, with each interview lasting between 35–55 min. The analysis was carried out by two researchers who served as coders, and MAXQDA 2022 (VERBI Software GmbH) was used to do the analysis. Results: All twenty-five participants indicated their awareness of COVID-19. Participants said they were so “Scared” when they heard about COVID-19 that it could spell the doom for all humanity. Participants also talked about the extra workload that came upon them as a result of the pandemic and the “financial challenges” that they went through during the pandemic because they had no income since they were not teaching. Study participants indicated that one benefit of the pandemic was the heightened awareness of the need to practice hygienic behavior in their classroom. Conclusion: Participants’ beliefs about the virus being lethal led to mask wearing and the practice of hygienic behavior. Thus, although the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the emotional and financial status of the studied participants, a positive outcome was the participants’ awareness of the need to practice positive health behavior, which will contribute to the overall health and safety of everyone in the preschool environment.