Relation between prenatal education for breastfeeding and breastfeeding technique

Abstract

Objectives: compare the evaluation of breastfeeding technique between binomials who did or did not receive prenatal education orientation. Methods: original study based on the application of breastfeeding evaluation form on binomials in joint accommodation (JA) composing of twenty (20) Yes/No questions and the collection of bi categorized independent variables between August/2017-October/2018. Prenatal educational activities with nominal listing of those present and thus creation of the variable was: Prenatal Class Yes/No. Multivariate analysis by Logistic regression were performed with confdence interval at 95%. Results: 180 binomials were included, of which 13 (7%) were exposed to prenatal activities and 167 (93%) were not exposed. In the exposed group, there was a predominance of married and multiparous women (p<0.05), in addition to lower educational level and higher rate of maternal pathologies and low birth weight (p<0.05). Regarding the breastfeeding evaluation, of the 20 questions observed, the exposed group was superior in 12 of them. Among the 4 questions about the Newborn’s grip, the exposed group was superior in 3 (baby’s mouth wide open, lip lowered and chin touching the breast), and the unexposed group was superior in the areola visualization above the upper lip with p<0.05. The limitation found in the study was attributed to quantitative and qualitative heterogeneity between groups. Conclusions: prenatal education for breastfeeding did not alternate significantly the performance of binomials on the breastfeeding technique in this study.