Impact of an intervention to promote exclusive breastfeeding among adolescents and their mothers in Brazil

Background: As a process involving natural and cultural aspects, breastfeeding is influenced by several factors. Among them, grandmothers have been shown to have impact on duration of breastfeeding. In Brazil, grandmothers may have a negative impact on exclusive breastfeeding rates. Therefore it is necessary to test breastfeeding promotional strategies including grandmothers. Objective: To assess the impact of an intervention to promote breastfeeding among adolescents and their mothers. Methods: A randomized trial was done with 147 adolescents living with their mothers (grandmothers) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. 72 were randomized to control group and 75 to the group who received the intervention, which consisted of educational sessions promoting breastfeeding among adolescents and their mothers at the maternity ward and at 7, 15, 30, 60 and 120 days at home. Breastfeeding practices were studied monthly by phone by researches unaware of group allocation. The primary outcome measure was the rate of exclusive breastfeeding from birth to 6 months. The impact of the intervention was measured by comparing exclusive breastfeeding survival curves of the two groups. Analyses were by intention to treat.  Results: The patterns of exclusive breastfeeding in the two trial groups for the first 6 months differed significantly. Exclusive breastfeeding rates were higher when adolescents and their mothers received the intervention compared with the control group. At 4 months, 38,2% of children from the intervention group were exclusively breastfed while only 11,1% in the control group were receiving only mother’s milk. Conclusion: The intervention promoting breastfeeding among adolescents and their mothers was successful in increasing the rates of exclusive breastfeeding.