Nurses Role In Promoting Breastfeeding

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The Nurse’s Role in Promoting Breastfeeding Ruth McMonagle Tacoma Community College NURS 131: Caring for the Client with Minor Deviations from Wellness Richard Maffeo, RN, MSN. Winter Quarter 2011 The Nurse’s Role in Promoting Breastfeeding Breastfeeding children for the first six months of life is strongly recommended by consensus in medical practice. It confers benefits on both mother and child across the life span. Yet, while breastfeeding rates in the United States (U.S.) are at 75% at birth, only 39% of mothers breastfeed to six months (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, 2008.) As most births in the US and other developed nations involve medical care, what can medical systems do to further promote this health giving behavior? More specifically, what is the role of nursing in promoting breastfeeding in medical systems? The purpose of this paper is to show that breastfeeding confers significant benefits to mothers and children across the life span, and that nurses can play an increasingly central role in supporting this positive health behavior. The consequences for mother and child of neglecting to support breastfeeding include: increased rates of otitis media (inflammation of the middle ear), and respiratory infection for the infant; type 1 and type 2 diabetes for the child, more postpartum bleeding, increase of certain reproductive cancers in the mother, and economic costs for the community, family, and environment. US breastfeeding initiation rates have been found to be relatively low compared to Federal guidelines. These low initiation rates put the US below Mexico, and dramatically below the global leader Norway. Even when US rates of breastfeeding initiation have improved, this has not necessarily correlated with continued breastfeeding once the mother left the hospital (Watkins & Dodgson, 2010.) Several factors have been

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