Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York University, Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Population Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
J Hum Lact. 2023 Feb;39(1):168-177. doi: 10.1177/08903344221121571. Epub 2022 Sep 9.
Maternal social support promotes healthy infant feeding practices, which influence healthy growth and development. Less is known about how the interplay of social support networks and multicultural health beliefs may influence infant feeding practices, particularly among immigrant Chinese American mothers with economic disadvantage and low breastfeeding rates.
To explore the role of social support networks in the development of infant feeding practices in immigrant Chinese American mothers with infants.
This was a prospective, cross-sectional qualitative study where we conducted semi-structured interviews in Mandarin, Cantonese, or English with Chinese American mothers of infants ( = 25) at a federally qualified health center in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Data were analyzed by a multicultural, multidisciplinary team using qualitative thematic analysis and the constant comparative method to identify and iteratively refine emerging codes.
Three themes emerged describing how broad transnational communities and close family and friends influence maternal-infant feeding practices: (1) Gathering and processing infant feeding information from broad transnational resources (i.e., from both the mother's country of residence and the mother's country of origin); (2) aligning maternal feeding attitudes with cultural health beliefs of local social networks; and (3) gaining confidence with transactional maternal-infant feeding interactions.
Strategies to promote healthy infant feeding should consider how family supports and culturally-relevant coaching can help align multilevel transnational social networks with healthy infant feeding practices.
母亲的社会支持促进了健康的婴儿喂养方式，这影响了健康的成长和发育。人们对社会支持网络和多元文化健康信念的相互作用如何影响婴儿喂养方式知之甚少，特别是在经济困难和母乳喂养率低的移民华裔美国母亲中。
探讨社会支持网络在移民华裔美国母亲养育婴儿过程中对婴儿喂养方式的作用。
这是一项前瞻性、横断面的定性研究，我们在纽约布鲁克林日落公园街区的一家联邦合格健康中心，以普通话、粤语或英语对 25 名华裔美国婴儿的母亲进行了半结构式访谈。一个多元文化、多学科的团队使用定性主题分析和不断比较的方法来分析数据，以识别和迭代完善新兴的编码。
有三个主题描述了广泛的跨国社区和亲密的家庭和朋友如何影响母婴喂养方式：（1）从广泛的跨国资源（即母亲居住国和母亲原籍国）收集和处理婴儿喂养信息；（2）使母亲的喂养态度与当地社交网络的文化健康信念保持一致；（3）通过母婴之间的交易性互动获得信心。
促进健康婴儿喂养的策略应考虑家庭支持和相关文化指导如何帮助将多层次的跨国社会网络与健康婴儿喂养方式保持一致。
