Breast-feeding attitudes and practices among Vietnamese mothers in Ho Chi Minh City.

OBJECTIVE: to describe breast-feeding attitudes and practices among Vietnamese women in Ho Chi Minh City.
DESIGN: a descriptive qualitative study was used. The theory of planned behaviour provided the conceptual framework.
SETTING: the Well-baby Clinic, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of a university hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. PARTICIPANTS: 23 voluntary Vietnamese mothers. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: semi-structured in-depth interview with five open-ended questions and observation was used. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data from the interviews and observations were analysed by use of content analysis.
FINDINGS: five categories of breast-feeding attitudes and practices were identified: breast-feeding best but not exclusive, cultural and traditional beliefs, infant feeding as a learning process, factors influencing decision to breast feed, and intention to feed the child. KEY CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: cultural and traditional beliefs and practices, and socio-economic situation, influenced the Vietnamese mothers' breast feeding. Health-care professionals should consider cultural context and socio-economic issues when preparing infant feeding education and intervention programmes. Appropriate knowledge about cultural values should be included in health-care education in order to provide culturally congruent care to Vietnamese mothers in Vietnam as well as in Western countries.