OBJECTIVES: to verify maternal knowledge on breastfeeding as well as mother's opinion on pacifiers and bottles use as well as the involvement in pre-natal and postnatal breastfeeding orientations by healthcare professionals. METHODS:a cross-sectional study was designed involving 143 mothers of first-born babies in 19 maternity hospitals in Recife, Pernambuco, from March 1997 to October 1998. The mothers filled a standardized questionnaire on breastfeeding. RESULTS: the study presented a high prevalence of young mothers (43% under 19 years old). Only 4,2% of the respondents were illiterate and 32,2% had completed high school or college. In general, 61,6% of the mothers had made at least four to seven prenatal visits and 51,8% had received information on breastfeeding at the time. Concerning pacifiers and bottles the findings showed that respectively 80% and 60% of the mothers intended to buy and to use them. Besides almost 10% of the mothers introduced pacifiers and bottles to their babies even in the hospital. CONCLUSIONS: this study shows the necessity of a interdisciplinary work to motivate mothers to promote breastfeeding. This requires an effort by health care professionals to suggest mothers that the human milk is the most important infant's food.
Breastfeeding; Infant care; Bottle feeding
