Práticas de aleitamento materno em crianças menores de 24 meses em creches públicas do município de Alagoa Grande - PB.

Abstract

Breastfeeding is a natural practice, capable of bringing numerous benefits, helping the child's psychomotor development. It must be exclusive until six months of age, and no other type of food or drink, not even water or tea, should be offered. Even with all the benefits, some mothers are unable or do not find it necessary to breastfeed their child. The objective of this study was to evaluate the practice of breastfeeding in children under 24 months of age in public day care centers in the city of Alagoa Grande - PB. This is a cross-sectional quantitative research with a descriptive-explanatory character, carried out with mothers of children enrolled in public day care centers, with data collection carried out through the application of an adapted questionnaire. The questions were intended to consult information on “breastfeeding practice at the time of the interview”; “breastfeeding in the first hour of life”; “problems faced with breastfeeding”; “Breastfeeding information received during pregnancy”. The data were tabulated in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and represented through tables for visualization and formatting of the results. The average age of the mothers was 25 years, 54.35% were breastfeeding at the time of the research and 45.65% were not, of these 66.67% stopped breastfeeding between 1 and 6 months and 33.33% after 6 months. months of age, and among them, 94.74% introduced artificial milk and 5.26% another type of food. Of the interviewees, 91.67% reported that they had cracked nipples and most mothers felt pain in the first feedings, 73.91%, from 0 to 10 as a score to classify this pain, we obtained an average of 6.79±2.79. In which, 32.35% reported that the pain disappeared between the 1st and 5th day and 67.65% after the 5th day, the pain appeared at the beginning of the feeding, 93.94%, and during the feeding, 6.06% . Among the mothers, 73.33% reported that they received information about breastfeeding during pregnancy and for 89.13% of them, breastfeeding should start within the 1st hour of life. More than half had access to information about breastfeeding during pregnancy at the health center through the nurse and it was evident that complications in breastfeeding are common, occurring in more than half of the mothers, which if persistent can interfere with the continuity of breastfeeding. It can be concluded that the practice of breastfeeding is low and that most breastfed only up to 6 months of life of the child, with this, it is concluded that it is necessary to carry out actions that propagate information to promote and protect breastfeeding. , by health professionals trained to parents and interested people.