Perceptions about infant feeding: A community perspective

Background: Community attitudes about infant feeding are an important aspect of the social environment. They can have an impact on breast-feeding behavior because they link to social norms determining such behavior. Since social acceptance of a health behavior is likely to encourage it we studied perceptions about infant feeding in a Northwestern community embarking on a breast-feeding promotion effort.

Methods: A survey tool was developed and pilot tested. The tool was then used over a 6-week period to anonymously interview 400 individuals randomly selected by telephone number. Subjects were called and offered the opportunity to respond via phone or by mail. The questionnaire included items on socio-demographic data and infant feeding. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 11.5.

Results: Of 400 phone numbers contacted a total of 254 valid surveys were collected. Respondents agreed that significant barriers to breast-feeding include mother's need to return back to work, baby starting daycare, breast-feeding interfering with private life, mothers being embarrassed, mother's breasts becoming too sore, breast-feeding being inconvenient or taking too much time. The community was perceived to favor bottle-feeding in the first six months of life, to have workplaces that make it easier to bottle-feed, and schools that do not support breast-feeding. Breast-feeding was not thought to be customary in public.

Conclusions: We confirm that the living and working environments present a significant challenge to breast-feeding. To be effective, interventions to enhance support for breast-feeding should include policy changes specific to environmental barriers in each community.