“All in Breastfeeding”: An Approach to Improving Breastfeeding Support at the Rainbow Center for Women and Children

Abstract

It has been well documented in the literature that breastfeeding has many benefits for mothers and their infants. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life and continued breastfeeding until the age of 1 or longer as desired by the mother and infant; however, many mothers face barriers to achieving this goal. More specifically, we noticed that at our Rainbow Center for Women and Children (the Center), few mothers were able to achieve exclusive or sustained breastfeeding. This study aimed to determine stakeholder views at the Center regarding barriers to breastfeeding in an underserved patient population and to develop a Breastfeeding Intervention Bundle from these responses to improve breastfeeding rates. We then surveyed participants including mothers, providers, and staff about support and comfort with knowledge gained over the period of the Intervention. While our study was unable to document a clear or sustained improvement in participant support or comfort related to breastfeeding over a 6-month period, we furthered our knowledge about barriers to breastfeeding and concluded that interventions to improve breastfeeding rates will likely need to be initiated at the systems level, not only at the individual patient and provider level, and with joint support from all stakeholders.