Breastfeeding Practices and Barriers

This assignment delves into the crucial topic of breastfeeding, examining its numerous health benefits for infants and analyzing the various barriers hindering its widespread adoption. It highlights biological, social, cultural, and psychological factors influencing mothers' attitudes and behaviors towards breastfeeding. The essay emphasizes the significant role healthcare professionals can play in addressing these challenges through education and support, ultimately aiming to increase breastfeeding rates and promote optimal infant health.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Nursing assignment
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Breastfeeding is regarded as the most beneficial practice for maintaining optimal growth
of infants and reducing childhood morbidity. Breastfeeding is the best approach to providing the
ideal food for the growth and development of infant. The World Health Organization (WHO)
recommends exclusive breast feeding practices for six months and initiation of the practice
within the first hours of baby’s life (Exclusive breastfeeding, 2017). However, the issue is that
many mothers fail to continue breastfeeding due to personal and societal barriers. The purpose of
this essay is to find out the barriers to exclusive breast feeding practices and find out the best
approach to promote breastfeeding among nursing mothers.
Breastfeeding is well-recognized and highly recommended for the first six months in
nursing mothers. Exclusive breastfeeding may be defined as the practice of giving only breast
milk to infants without mixing it with other supplements or liquids for the first six months. The
health benefit of breastfeeding is that it reduces the risk of otitis media, urinary tract infection
and gastrointestinal infection in infants and mothers are able to return back to their normal
weight very easily. However, despite well-recognized benefit and importance of exclusive
breastfeeding, very few nursing mothers follow the practice globally. The analysis of
breastfeeding practice in the world has revealed that only 45% of newborn are given breast milk
within the first hours of work and the less than 50% women engage in exclusive breastfeeding
for the first six months (Infant and Young Child Feeding - UNICEF DATA, 2017). In the context
of Maldives, the rate of breastfeeding is better than global data. 64% of the newborn are
breastfed within the first hours. However, the main concern is that exclsive breast feeding below
six months was only 48% (Maldives Health Profile 2016, 2017). Hence, very few infants are
getting the ideal nutrition that they require for growth and development.

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Due to the poor practice of breastfeeding among nursing mothers, it is necessary to
identify the barrier influencing continued breastfeeding. Firstly, duration of feeding is affected
by breast problems like sore nipple, insufficiency to produce milk, breast engorgement. This was
also found in research study done to evaluated barrier to breast feeding practice in Jordan
(Abuidhail et al., 2014). Secondly, in developing countries many other societal barriers prevent
continued breastfeeding practice among mothers. Many mothers are not able to do so because of
employment and career commitment. They do not get maternity leave for a long period of time
and the need to resume work prevents mother from continuing breastfeeding. For this reason,
may mothers rely on infant formulas and other supplements to meet the nutritional needs of their
infants when they are at office (Mirkovic et al., 2014). Hence, flexible work scheduling is a
necessary step to support mothers and achieve the goals of breastfeeding.
Another study gave the insight that barrier to breastfeeding is seen because of wrong
perception of mothers that their infants are hungry because of breast milk and other infant
formula is good to satisfy their infants and calm them (Abuidhail et al., 2014). Apart from this,
difference in breastfeeding rate is seen due to the cultural mindset of women. For instance,
young and full time employed mothers are less likely to breastfeed their Indian. Another barrier
is the sexualization of breast and the perception among people that breast should not be
displayed in public. Hence, many women are not able visualize the breast to provide nutrition to
their child in all places. Husbands also discourage their wife to breastfeed because of concern
regarding overall personality and body shape due to breastfeeding (Rollins et al., 2016).
Research also points out to psychosocial barriers of breastfeeding where women do not opt for
breastfeeding because of fear of unattractive breast, less freedom and inability to supply enough

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milk. This is seen mainly due to cultural upbring and poor knowledge about the benefits of
breastfeeding among mothers (Ping, 2014).
The recommended breastfeeding practices by WHO is also influenced by the impact
breastfeeding technology. For instance, there is an increase in uptake of breast pumps among
mothers when they are working or traveling or moving out. However, use of such pumps cause
adverse events such as discomfort, damage of breast tissue and contamination of breast milk. It
also has an impact on maternal infant interaction (Buckley, 2009). Hence, medical technology is
minimizing the maternal roles and its use should be restricted to those mother who are in real
need for such technology.
Breastfeeding is also influenced by the relationship of mothers with relatives and the
health care professionals. Their cultural background or upbringing my either support or restrict
them to breast feed their infants. However, mothers are likely to improve breastfeeding practice
if they get relevant information related to the benefits of breastfeeding from clinicians or nurses.
Hence, health care professionals can play a key role in promoting lactation. Their encouragement
and role in educating mothers about the risk associated with infant formula and the health
benefits of breast milk for their child is likely to change the attitude of mothers towards
breastfeeding (Edwards et al, 2015).
Breastfeeding can also be regarded as a culturally defined behavior because cultural
preference also affects nursing women’s decision on infant feeding. The nurse can also play a
role in changing the meaning of breastfeeding among nursing mothers. They can play a role in
recognizing and resolving difficulties faced by mothers in nurturing their child during
breastfeeding. They can play a role in teaching the right process of breastfeeding. The study

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regarding the perspective of nurses regarding the clinical management of breastfeeding has
showed that nurses must be aware of scientific and technical knowledge related to physiology of
lactation. With such knowledge, they can educate the mothers regarding the proper positioning
during breastfeeding and using other means to supply breast milk instead of feeding bottles and
other infant formula (Azevedo et al., 2015). Active listening might also be important to
understand what isssues nursing mothers faced during such process. However, for nurses,
maintaining the ethics of care is important which is related to following the principle of
autonomy. For instance, they can only educate and encourage mothers to continue breastfeeding
for six months, however the final decision regarding management of breast feeding lies
exclusively in mothers hands.
The essay presented and summarized the benefits of breastfeeding practice for infant
health and the barriers affecting the recommended rate of breastfeeding among mothers. Certain
biological, social, culture and psychological factors affects the attitudes and behaviors of mothers
regarding breastfeeding their child and the clinicians and nurses can play a major role in
addressing the issues faced by mother. With proper education regarding management of breast
feeding, health care professionals can influence breast feeding rate and practices in the target
community.

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Reference
Abuidhail, J., Al-Modallal, H., Yousif, R., & Almresi, N. (2014). Exclusive breast feeding (EBF)
in Jordan: Prevalence, duration, practices, and barriers. Midwifery, 30(3), 331-337.
Azevedo, A. R. R., Alves, V. H., Souza, R. D. M. P. D., Rodrigues, D. P., Branco, M. B. L. R.,
& Cruz, A. F. D. N. D. (2015). Clinical management of breastfeeding: knowledge of
nurses. Escola Anna Nery, 19(3), 439-445.
Buckley, K. M. (2009). A double-edged sword: lactation consultants' perceptions of the impact
of breast pumps on the practice of breastfeeding. The Journal of perinatal
education, 18(2), 13.
Edwards, R. A., Colchamiro, R., Tolan, E., Browne, S., Foley, M., Jenkins, L., ... & Forgit, J.
(2015). Online continuing education for expanding clinicians’ roles in breastfeeding
support. Journal of Human Lactation, 31(4), 582-586.
Exclusive breastfeeding. (2017). World Health Organization. Retrieved 18 September 2017,
from http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/exclusive_breastfeeding/en/
Infant and Young Child Feeding - UNICEF DATA. (2017). UNICEF DATA. Retrieved 18
September 2017, from https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/infant-and-young-child-
feeding/#
Maldives Health Profile 2016. (2017). http://health.gov.mv. Retrieved 18 September 2017, from
http://health.gov.mv/Uploads/Downloads//Informations/Informations(73).pdf

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Mirkovic, K. R., Perrine, C. G., Scanlon, K. S., & Grummer-Strawn, L. M. (2014). Maternity
leave duration and full-time/part-time work status are associated with US mothers’ ability
to meet breastfeeding intentions. Journal of Human Lactation, 30(4), 416-419.
Ping, E. (2014). Keeping Abreast of the Multiple Biological, Cultural, and Psycho-Social
Barriers to Breastfeeding in Modern Society. Kultura-Społeczeństwo-Edukacja, (1 (5)).
Rollins, N. C., Bhandari, N., Hajeebhoy, N., Horton, S., Lutter, C. K., Martines, J. C., ... &
Group, T. L. B. S. (2016). Why invest, and what it will take to improve breastfeeding
practices?. The Lancet, 387(10017), 491-504.