THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010450
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 88 lines
Study after scientific study proves that breast-feeding infants significantly improves their health.
Breast-fed babies get fewer ear infections, allergies and diarrhea. They have a reduced risk of meningitis, diabetes and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Some studies are even showing a possible protection against certain kinds of cancer.
Yet in Virginia, only five in 10 women breast-feed their babies immediately after birth, according to the Virginia Department of Health. Within six months, fewer than two in 10 are still nursing.
Now, Eastern Virginia Medical School associate professor Ardythe L. Morrow has completed a new study that shows that lack of support may be the main reason women quit nursing their babies, or never start.
Morrow, a researcher at the Center for Pediatric Research, a joint program between EVMS and Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, will present her findings today at a scientific meeting in Maryland.
Morrow's data is based on an 18-month study of 300 new mothers in San Pedro Martir, a low-income town on the outskirts of Mexico City. Morrow plans to duplicate the project this fall in Norfolk's Park Place and Lamberts Point neighborhoods, and on the Eastern Shore.
``We realized that breast-feeding is a learned behavior,'' Morrow said. ``It isn't an instinctual activity.''
In her study, La Leche League, an international breast-feeding support group, trained community women as promotoras, or peer counselors. Most had breast-fed their own babies, but a few had not.
The promotoras spent an hour educating pregnant women about the benefits of breast-feeding. Then they visited new mothers at least twice during the next three months, spending just a few minutes each time to ensure that mothers were holding their babies properly and to answer questions.
The results astounded Morrow.
When the promotoras visited three times, the number of women exclusively breast-feeding at three months increased from 7 percent to 33 percent. For those who were visited six times, the increase jumped to 48 percent.
``We would have been pleased if the numbers had increased to 15 percent,'' Morrow said. ``Increases to 33 and 48 percent were stunning.''
The research can be applied to Hampton Roads, she said. ``The peer-counseling model is a universal one. A lot of times women get discouraged with breast-feeding because they don't know how to solve a problem and they don't know anyone who knows. If they have someone to turn to to ask a question, it can help a great deal.''
In years past, women learned about breast-feeding from their mothers. But earlier this century, formula replaced breast milk as the food of choice.
That shift left generations of women without any knowledge of breast-feeding. So when nursing again became popular in the 1980s - due in part to increased scientific evidence that it boosts infants' health - women floundered.
Doctors typically aren't trained to help them, Morrow said. In fact, most Mexican mothers stop breast-feeding because of bad advice from their pediatricians.
``Whenever something would go wrong - if the mother or baby had an illness - the first advice was, `Cease breast-feeding and give formula,' '' Morrow said.
The problem isn't restricted to Mexico. Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that family practitioners, pediatricians and ob-gyns don't know enough about the benefits of breast-feeding or about how to educate and advise women about breast-feeding.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants be breast-fed exclusively for at least their first six to 12 months.
To help women meet that goal, many local hospitals and some pediatric groups have hired lactation consultants to counsel women about breast-feeding. But research shows that women are more likely to follow advice from their peers and friends, said Nancy Pribble, nutritional program coordinator for WIC, a food program for low-income women and children.
WIC, the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children, instituted a peer-counseling program in most of Virginia, including South Hampton Roads, in 1989. The program has increased the number of breast-feeding WIC mothers 230 percent, Pribble said. ``It's had a wonderful effect,'' she said.
Dr. Jim Ogan would like to bring that effect to the Eastern Shore, where he works as a pediatrician at the Children's Health Center in Franktown.
He's asked Morrow to help him develop a peer-counseling program similar to one she ran in Mexico, to encourage teenage mothers to nurse their babies.
``I think it will work because it's a part of people's lives in a more ordinary way than calling the doctor with what they may think is a silly question,'' he said.
Morrow's plan for a similar program in Norfolk's Park Place and Lamberts Point neighborhoods is also aimed at teenage mothers - who have the lowest breast-feeding rate of any age group.
KEYWORDS: BREASTFEEDING STUDY PEER COUNSELING PROMOTORAS by CNB