Knowledge and Attitudes of Pregnant Women Regarding Breastfeeding

Abstract

Inadequate knowledge or inappropriate attitude about breastfeeding may lead to undesirable consequences. This study assessed the breastfeeding knowledge and attitude of pregnant women about breastfeeding. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 pregnant women from four primary health-care centers in Erbil City/Iraqi Kurdistan from March 15, 2017, to May 15, 2017. A structured questionnaire was developed based on the evidence in the literature. A face to face interview technique was used for data collection. Overall, 61.7% of mothers had a poor level of knowledge of breastfeeding despite having a positive attitude (96.7%). There was a significant association between mothers’ knowledge and mothers’ education level, age, occupation, and type of family. However, no significant association was found between mothers’ attitude and their education level, age, occupation, parity, type of family, and having the plan to breastfeed. As general, the highest percentage of correct responses was about knowing about early skin-to-skin contact (69.2%), initiation of breastfeeding (57.5%), knowing the colostrum (76.7%), necessity of giving colostrum (79.2%), no necessity prelacteal feeding (79.2%), exclusive breastfeeding age (69.2%), complementary age food (70.8%), and optimal weaning time (70%) while the lowest percentage of correct responses was about breastfeeding benefits for infant and mother; as well as the contraindication of breastfeeding. Having good attitude regarding breastfeeding is not ensuring to have good knowledge. A significant number of pregnant mothers had not sufficient knowledge that indicating the necessity of interventional programs by the health system.