Centre for Primary and Community Care, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
Matern Child Nutr. 2010 Jul 1;6(3):228-42. doi: 10.1111/j.1740-8709.2009.00202.x.
Breastfeeding is a key determinant in promoting public health and reducing health inequality. Low-income women have a significantly lower level of breastfeeding. Midwives in the UK have been encouraged to implement the World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund's Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, but to date, there has been no evaluation of the impact of the training initiative on the breastfeeding behaviours of low-income women. As part of a wider study, this qualitative component was designed to answer the question - what are the views and experiences of low-income women (defined by Jarman scores) in relation to their breastfeeding support received in the post-natal period? A sample of seven women was interviewed. The in-depth interviews were analysed using a qualitative, thematic approach based on the self-efficacy theory. The four themes that emerged from the data were the following: breastfeeding related to the woman's self-confidence, the social environment in which the woman lived, knowledge of breastfeeding and the influence of maternity services on breastfeeding outcomes. These themes were interpreted in relation to the self-efficacy theory. The findings suggest that the components that inform self-efficacy are consistent with the themes from the data, suggesting that midwives and other health professionals should take the psychosocial aspects of breastfeeding support into account. As this important feature of breastfeeding support is not explicitly part of the current Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, we suggest that further research and debate could inform expansion of these minimum standards to include the psychosocial aspects.
母乳喂养是促进公众健康和减少健康不平等的关键决定因素。低收入妇女母乳喂养的比例明显较低。英国的助产士被鼓励实施世界卫生组织/联合国儿童基金会的成功母乳喂养十项措施，但迄今为止，还没有评估培训计划对低收入妇女母乳喂养行为的影响。作为更广泛研究的一部分，本定性部分旨在回答一个问题——在产后期间，低收入妇女（根据 Jarman 评分定义）对其获得的母乳喂养支持有何看法和经验？对 7 名妇女进行了采访。采用基于自我效能理论的定性主题分析方法对深入访谈进行了分析。从数据中得出了以下四个主题：母乳喂养与妇女的自信心、妇女生活的社会环境、母乳喂养知识以及孕产服务对母乳喂养结果的影响。这些主题是根据自我效能理论进行解释的。研究结果表明，构成自我效能的因素与数据中的主题一致，这表明助产士和其他卫生专业人员应该考虑母乳喂养支持的社会心理方面。由于当前成功母乳喂养十项措施中没有明确包含这一重要的母乳喂养支持内容，我们建议进一步的研究和辩论可以为扩大这些最低标准以纳入社会心理方面提供信息。
