Knowledge of mothers about forms of breastfeeding and deleterious habits

Abstract

Introduction: Exclusive breastfeeding is essential until six months, because in addition to promoting integral health for the baby, it assists in craniofacial development and stomatognathic functions. Objective: To investigate the knowledge of mothers about breastfeeding, harmful oral habits and other methods to offer the diet to the baby. Method: This is a descriptive quantitative study. A semi-structured questionnaire with open and closed questions was applied to 80 mothers of a Speech-Language Pathology Clinic from June to September 2017. Results: 66.3% of the mothers were between 18 and 30 years old, 98.8%. performed prenatal care, 63.8% performed exclusive breastfeeding until six months of age, most (88.8%) demonstrated knowledge about exclusive breastfeeding and 72.5% received information about breastfeeding in the hospital, 43.8% received information on pacifier use and 27.5% regarding bottle use. It was observed that the bottle is the second best known way to offer milk to the baby, totaling 52.7%. Regarding the professional who advised the most about breastfeeding, harmful oral habits and feeding utensils was the nurse (57.5%) and only 16.30% received guidance from speech therapists. Conclusion: It can be concluded that there is high adherence to exclusive breastfeeding, but there is still a portion that does not perform this way. Mothers have knowledge regarding pacifiers, bottles, breastfeeding and other forms of breastfeeding, but information about the stomatognathic system is scarce. It was found that there was not much performance of the speech therapist with this population. It is noteworthy that there are more nurses compared to the number of speech therapists.