Literature Review On Breastfeeding

2-LITERATURE REVIEW

Though breastfeeding is considered by most, to be a behavior that involves only the mother and child, it also occurs in the greater aspects of a community and/or a society .therefore, breast feeding is hardly a personal behavior rather it is accompanied by multiple factors that act either independently or collaboratively to affect the intention to carry it out which eventually affects the performance of the behavior resulting in a reduced breast feeding rates (reference #8).

Intention is an indicator of how hard a person is willing to try, or how much effort they are willing to put into performing a behavior. The probability that a person will actually perform a behavior increases as the strength of intention increases.

2.2.1 – Socio-Demographic factors

Demographic factors like Gender is significantly related to breastfeeding intention in some studies while in others, it happens to show no association. A study conducted in Taiwan revealed that female students have future intention toward breastfeeding than male students(20).on the contrary, a study conducted in china found that males were more likely to report the intention [to support a partner] to breastfeed in the future than females(19).

On the other hand, few researches indicate that demographic factors like age and grade seem to be minimal indicators of those who intend to initiate and continue to breastfeeding. A study conducted among 190 unmarried women in the United States found that despite all demographic variables, greater percentage of the participants had the intention to breastfeed their Future children (reference#1).similarly C.hadle.et.al. (2008) found that intended duration of breastfeeding is not affected by sex

Cultural attitudes and norms are recognized as important factors in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) model of the determinants of infant and child feeding behavior (25). Swanson.et.al. (2005) used the Theory of Reasoned Action to evaluate the role of knowledge and social influences on breastfeeding beliefs and intentions to breastfeed in central Scotland. They indicated that perceived social barriers to breastfeeding were directly correlated with knowledge and beliefs which in turn affects intention. They found that the more knowledge, positive beliefs, and supportive subjective norm, the higher the rates of intention to breastfeed (26).similarly Goulet.et.al (2003) conducted a study to describe attitudes and subjective norms of breastfeeding in adolescents and found that negative subjective norms led to decreased intent to breastfeed