Educational interventions
Antenatal BF education is defined as BF information being imparted during the pregnancy in a variety of forms. This could be on an individual or group basis, could include home visiting programmes, peer education programmes or clinic appointments specifically aimed at imparting BF knowledge and could involve prospective fathers or not. BF education is usually a formalised, defined, descriptive and goal-orientated programme with a specific purpose and target audience.
BF education differs from BF support. BF support is usually aimed at the individual person as the need arises and is defined as a person, a group or an organisation providing support in many ways. This could be psychological support (affirming and encouraging the mother), physical support (providing meals, caring for her other children, house cleaning and gardening), financial support or BF information services available to be tapped into when a BF question arises. BF support usually starts in the postnatal period, not antenatally.
Although we recognise the potential importance of interventions in the postnatal period on breastfeeding outcomes, the focus of this review is on antenatal BF education only, and we have not included trials examining interventions that also involve intrapartum or postpartum BF education. Other Cochrane reviews examine BF education and support interventions in the intrapartum and postnatal periods (Britton 2007; Dyson 2005; Sikorski 2002).
Objectives
1.To assess the effectiveness of antenatal breastfeeding (BF) education for increasing BF initiation and duration.
2.To compare the effectiveness of various forms of education; for example, peer support, educational programme, didactic teaching session, workshop, booklets, etc, or a combination of these interventions for increasing BF initiation and duration.
3.To assess the effects of antenatal BF education on other maternal and infant outcomes, e.g. BF complications, maternal satisfaction and neonatal sepsis.