SALES, K. C.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/1041207374880557; SALES, Karina Costa de.
Resumen:
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.
