THE EFFECTS OF A PRENATAL WORKSHOP INTEGRATED WITH TELEPHONE COUNSELING ON EXCLUSIVE BREAST FEEDING ADHERANCE AMONG PRIMIPAROUS WOMEN

The positive effects of breast feeding on growth of children is confirmed. Breast
milk includes all characteristics of ideal nutrition in infants being significant in reducing morbidity and
mortality of children.The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of a prenatal
workshop integrated with telephone counseling on exclusive breast feeding adherance among
primiparous women
Methods & Materials: A randomized controlled trial design was used; the study population consisted
of all pregnant women in their third trimester that referred to the prenatal clinic of Shahid Akbarabadi
hospital in Tehran. The samples were recruited by consecutive sampling method and randomly
allocated to experimental and control group. The sample size was 120. In this study, data collection
instruments were a questionnaire including demographic and obstetric items and adherence checklist
of exclusive breast feeding that were completed by one of the researchers. Data analysis was
performed using SPSS.
Results: The study findings showed that there were no significant difference among the participants in
the experimental and control group regarding demographic variables, such as educational status,
occupation, economic status, desire to pregnancy, and body mass index, except age. The majority of
the women were in the range of 18-24 years old and the result showed a significant difference between
the two groups (p=0.001), but at the post test, after educational counseling intervention, there was a
significant increase of adherence to exclusive breast feeding at sixth months of postpartum in the
experimental group compared to the control group (p=0.001)
Conclusion: The study findings revealed the positive effect of the educational counseling program on
the rate of exclusive breast feeding adherence. Implementation of such educational counseling in the
prenatal period at the Baby Friendly Hospitals is recommended.