#BlackBreastsMatter: A Social Media Intervention Study to Increase Breastfeeding Among African-American Women [01C]

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast cancer. Disparities exist in breastfeeding with about 59% of African-American infants ever being breastfed versus 75% of white infants. One possible explanation is that African-American women may not be discussing benefits of breastfeeding. Thus, this pilot study explores the use of social media to engage pregnant African-American women in education about breastfeeding and to test its impact on breastfeeding outcomes. METHODS: This study was a randomized intervention enrolling eligible African-American women in Buffalo over 18 months into one of two private Facebook groups. The intervention arm received breastfeeding plus breast cancer risk-reduction messaging while the control arm received messaging about breastfeeding alone. A subset of the intervention and control arms failed to join the assigned Facebook group thus creating “true controls” for the study. Participants completed pre- and post-birth assessments. RESULTS: 288 women (N=135 in intervention arm, N=153 in control arm) were randomized into the study. Pre-birth, 76.7% of true controls, 74.7% of breastfeeding-only, and 85.9% of the intervention-group were planning to breastfeed, but, respectively, only 24.6%, 34.6%, and 32.9% exclusively breastfeed post-birth. Breast cancer risk perceptions did not differ between pre-birth and post-birth for the intervention group. The percentage of controls who responded that their risk was “very low” or “somewhat low” significantly increased from 61.5% at pre-birth to 80.0% at post-birth. CONCLUSION: Exclusive breastfeeding is high among groups receiving social media messaging. Therefore, continued and improved efforts should be made to use social media to promote breastfeeding and its benefits.