Investigation of Midwifery Students' Knowledge, Opinions and Religious Attitudes about Breast Milk Banking

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the relationship between midwifery students' knowledge, views, and religious attitudes about breast milk banking (BMB). Material and Method: The population of this cross-sectional and descriptive study consisted of students from the Faculty of Health Sciences Midwifery Department. No sampling procedure was implemented in the study; instead, the entire population was targeted. Accordingly, 230 students who were at the school during the study and agreed to participate were included in the study. The data was collected using a "descriptive information form", which was developed by the researchers and aimed to collect information about participants' socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge and views on breast milk banking, and the "Religious Attitudes Scale" (RAS). Results: The analysis of the students' responses to the questions checking their knowledge on BMB indicated that 37.0% knew BMB and that some of them had no idea about whether there was a need for BMB in our country (43.0%), whether using milk from a breast milk bank would matter religiously (41.3%), whether donor milk would cause an infection in newborns (48.3%), and whether milk obtained from a milk bank would be reliable (59.6%). The evaluation of students' views showed that 46.1% were not sure about donating their own milk to a breast milk bank, 38.2% would contact a breast milk bank when their baby needed milk, 42.2% thought donating milk was ethical, and that 56.1% said they would recommend this institution to mothers who had insufficient milk. The mean scores of the students from the RAS and the correlation analysis conducted to determine the knowledge and opinions of the students about BMB revealed that as the mean RAS scores increased, using milk from a milk bank would create problems religiously. Conclusion:In this study, it was found that most of the students had poor knowledge and negative opinions about BMB and that increased religious orientation led to taking a negative view against breast milk banking.