Conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas sobre lactancia materna en madres lactantes. Hospitales Cantonales de Paute, Santa Isabel y Centro de Salud de Nabón. año 2013

Abstract

Goal: To assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of nursing mothers attending to cantonal hospitals in Paute and Santa Isabel, as well as Nabon’s Health Center.

Materials and Methods: We developed an action - research evaluation in order to evaluate the knowledge and practices of nursing mothers. The sample comprised 290 nursing mothers who were subjected to a precaps, followed by an intervention through an educational program and finally to a postcaps. All this in order to verify the effectiveness of the program applied.

Results: According to the results obtained by participating nursing mothers in the percaps and postcaps evaluation, 49% of the women were between 21 and 25 years old with children in ages between 0 and 6 months (65%). On the precaps 53% of the nursing mothers consider cow milk as a substitute of breast milk, after the postcaps 91% of them manifested it wasn’t a substitute. When they were asked if they had knowledge about certain food products that could affect the production of breast milk, 15% of them answered positively. After the postcaps 100% of women manifested there are no food products that disrupt milk production. On the other hand, 59% of the nursing mothers considered that it was possible to breastfeed while pregnant, after the evaluation this knowledge increased in 37%. 26% did not know the meaning of colostrum and 8% didn’t recommend feeding it. After the postcaps 100% answered they knew the meaning of it and promoting it. During the intervention we motivated the importance of nursing during the children’s development stage.

KEYWORDS: PUBLIC HEALTH; HEALTH PROMOTION; PUBLIC HEALTH NUTRITION; HEALTH PROMOTION; DISEASE PREVENTION; HEALTH EDUCATION; PRIMARY PREVENTION; NUTRITION EDUCATION BREASTFEEDING PRACTICES; EXCLUSIVE NURSING; NURSING POSITIONS; COLOSTRUM; MAMMARY GLAND; FLUID INTAKE; BOTTLE.