Introduction: This study sought to identify women's concerns regarding breastfeeding during the prenatal period and determine whether women thought that health care providers addressed these concerns.
Methods: A structured interview with both open-ended and closed-ended questions addressing the study objectives was administered to a cross-sectional sample of 130 English-speaking or Spanish-speaking postpartum women at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Results: When asked an open-ended question regarding whether they had concerns about breastfeeding while making their decisions about feeding their infants, 81.5% of women identified at least 1 concern. Of these women, only 25.4% reported that this concern was addressed by the provider during prenatal care. When prompted with 8 common concerns regarding breastfeeding during the prenatal period, 95.4% of women identified at least 1 of these preidentified concerns. Only 17.4% of women who identified any of these 8 concerns reported that the concerns had been discussed with a provider.
Discussion: Women's recall of prenatal health care discussions strongly suggests that providers are not adequately addressing women's concerns about breastfeeding.
© 2011 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives.