Australian, Irish and Swedish women’s perceptions of what assisted them to breastfeed for six months: exploratory design using critical incident technique

Abstract

BackgroundBreastfeeding initiation rates in some developed countries are high (98 % in Sweden and 96 % in Australia) whereas in others, they are not as favourable (46 % to 55 % in Ireland). Although the World Health Organization recommends exclusively breastfeeding for six months, 15 % of Australian women, 11 % of Swedish women and less than 7 % of Irish women achieve this goal. Awareness of what women in different countries perceive as essential breastfeeding support is a gap in our knowledge.MethodsOur aim was to explore Australian, Irish and Swedish women’s perceptions of what assisted them to continue breastfeeding for six months. An exploratory design using critical incident techniques was used. Recruitment occurred through advertisements in local newspapers and on social networking platforms. Initial sampling was purposive, followed by snowball sampling. Telephone interviews were conducted with 64 Irish, 139 Swedish and 153 Australian women who responded to one question “what has assisted you to continue breastfeeding for at least six months?” Content analysis was conducted and common categories determined to allow comparison of frequencies and priority ranking.ResultsCategories reflected the individual mother, her inner social network, her outer social network (informal support either face to face or online), and societal support (health professionals, work environment and breastfeeding being regarded as the cultural norm). Categories ranked in the top five across the three countries were ‘informal face to face support’ and ‘maternal determination’. Swedish and Australian women ranked “health professional support” higher (first and third respectively) than Irish women who ranked ‘informal online support’ as second compared to ninth and tenth for Swedish and Australian women.ConclusionsThe support required to assist breastfeeding women is complex and multi-faceted. Although common international categories were revealed, the ranking of these supportive categories varied. We must recognize how the cultural context of breastfeeding support can vary for women in differing countries and acknowledge the resourcefulness of women who embrace innovations such as social media where face to face formal and informal support are not as accessible.

Exclusive Breastfeeding Intention among Pregnant Mothers

“…Of 72.7% mothers exposed to information from social media, almost 50% mothers had two or more kinds online social media platforms (most of them use whatsapp and instagram) on their android smartphone. Similar to study by Hauck's, 30 in 2016, social media socially interactive in the community as well as online has meaningful correlation in increasing intention…”

“…This result is in line with the previous study which proved that health worker's support significantly related to intention which determined the effectiveness of exclusive breastfeeding. [29][30] Mother had previous breastfeeding experience in this study tend to have exclusive breastfeeding intention twice higher than those who did not. Similar to study by Mortazavi, et al, 3 mothers who did not have a previous breastfeeding experience admitted that they were lessconfident in exclusive breastfeeding than mothers who had breastfeeding experience.…”

The perceptions and experiences of women who achieved and did not achieve a waterbirth

“…This technique allows experiences of direct behaviour that have critical significance and meet methodically defined criteria to be evaluated [ 17 ]. The technique has been previously utilised to evaluate consumer expectations and perceptions in health care [ 18 , 19 ]. The incident has to be clearly defined, as it is the basic unit of analysis [ 17 ].…”

Breastfeeding support at an Australian Breastfeeding Association drop-in service: a descriptive survey

“…It is well established that breastfeeding is important for the short and long term health and wellbeing of mothers and babies [1], however, many Australian women do not meet global benchmarks [2], nor their own personal breastfeeding goals [3]. Women report, both in Australia [4] and internationally [5][6][7], that early breastfeeding support from health professionals is insu cient, inadequate, at times inappropriate and ceases after the rst couple of weeks [8].…”