Unmarried women and those who never completed high school are more likely to breastfeed their children if they receive in-home welfare visits from a person with shared cultural background.
A team of University of Albany researches conducted a study on over 3,500 at risk women who participate in in Healthy Families New York (HFNY), a state-wide home visiting program.
The data found that the number of times a home visitor (also known as a family support worker) addresses the subject of breastfeeding during a home visit directly correlates with the likelihood that mothers will attempt, or re-attempt, to breastfeed.
“It’s a simple message: If you talk about it, [mothers] will try to initiate breastfeeding,” said Eunju Lee, assistant professor in the School of Social Welfare.
But it was more than that.
If the mean number of visits addressing breastfeeding increases by 10 percent, the mother’s likelihood of breastfeeding increases by 15 percent, said Sandra McGinnis, senior research scientist at the school’s Center for Human Services Resources (CHSR).
“I think it’s compelling to know that the behavior of the home visitor, in terms of initiating these discussions, does make a difference for this group,” McGinnis said. “Some of their issues are rather intractable, so seeing any positive outcomes with such a vulnerable population is noteworthy.”
Home visitors discussing breastfeeding lead to increased in more new moms nursing independent of ethnicity, education, income and other factors that would generally predict breastfeeding outcomes.
“Even though [breastfeeding] is a mother’s instinctual behavior, there are huge disparities due to race, age and most likely social class,” McGinnis said. “It’s a tremendously difficult task to encourage [at-risk mothers] to breastfeed, but sending the right message does help improve these statistics.”
During the prenatal period, FSWs made biweekly visits, increasing to weekly visits following a child’s birth and until the child was six months old, according to the findings. This kind of support is often lacking in at-risk households, which helps to explain the behavioral divide between breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding mothers.
And it’s not enough to simply talk about breastfeeding. Tailoring a conversation to individual needs is key, Lee said.
“This is a concept that HFNY likes to call a ‘cultural broker,’ but in the same way, [home visitors] are health brokers; they are helping mothers digest important messages,” she said. “They are saying, ‘What are your worries?’”
To facilitate understanding and to minimize judgment, HFNY home visitors ideally come from the same cultural background and geographic area as the community they serve, McGinnis said, adding, “It’s not just pushing [mothers] to breastfeed, but a good home visitor will help them with problem solving.”
Lee stated that the study had a broader objective to not only to analyze data, but to make real improvements in how the HFNY program and programs like it are implemented.
“We are not only interested in generating knowledge,” she said. “What it’s really about, especially with social service research, is how are we going to improve people’s lives?”
The study’s results could impact other aspects of early childhood development. Improving breastfeeding rates among at-risk mothers can be a stepping stone to tackling other important health topics such as vaccinations, infant mortality rate and safe sleep, McGinnis said.
“This particular message is about breastfeeding, but I think the implication here is that home visiting programs are one mechanism by which disadvantaged families can be reached with public health messages,” she said.