Breast-feeding counselling and its effect on the prevalence of exclusive breast-feeding.

This prospective intervention study was undertaken to assess the impact of repeated breast-feeding counselling on the rate of exclusive breast-feeding up to five months. The study was carried out in two breast-feeding counselling sub-centres, established at the community level in the vicinity of two maternity facilities and one main centre established in an urban children hospital. Eighty-four pregnant mothers who attended the maternity facilities for delivery of babies were randomly selected and repeatedly counselled regarding breast-feeding--once just before delivery and subsequently at the completion of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 12 month(s) of age of the child. These child-mother pairs comprised the intervention group. Another group of 90 child-mother pairs was selected from the maternity facilities. Mothers in this group (comparison group) received a single session of breast-feeding counselling just before delivery of babies. Fifty-nine and 55 child-mother pairs in the intervention and the comparison groups respectively completed the one-year follow-up. In the intervention group, 54.2% and in the comparison group 36.4% of the babies were exclusively breastfed up to five months of age. Forty-two (88%) children in the intervention group and 29 (53%) in the comparison group were given complementary foods at the optimum time, e.g. after completion of five months, and 81% of the children in the intervention group and 100% of the children in the comparison group were given complementary foods in the first year of life. It was observed that repeated organized breast-feeding counselling significantly improved the prevalence of exclusive breast-feeding to 54% which is much above the existing national prevalence (12.7%) in Bangladesh.