Conhecimento de puérperas acerca do aleitamento materno em uma maternidade no interior do Maranhão

Abstract

Breastfeeding is a physiological and natural phenomenon between mother and child. The World Health Organization recommends that it should be exclusive until six months of age and maintained until two years of age. Lack of maternal knowledge about breastfeeding, as well as other factors, contributes to early weaning and poor maintenance of Exclusive Breastfeeding. In this context, based on the relevance of the topic in understanding mothers' greatest difficulties and challenges, the aim of this study is to assess the knowledge of puerperal women about breastfeeding in a maternity hospital in the interior of Maranhão. This is a descriptive-exploratory study, with a quantitative approach, carried out with puerperal women in a maternity hospital in the interior of the state of Maranhão. Data was collected using a form with socio-economic questions, obstetric history and reproductive history, current pregnancy and questions about breastfeeding experience. Afterwards, a test designed by researcher Gonçalves (2016), was used, with 15 items to investigate knowledge about breastfeeding. The data was entered into the Epiinfo and Jamovi programs for statistical analysis using simple frequency, standard deviation and the Student's t-test to compare means. Of the 102 puerperal women taking part in the study, 46.08% demonstrated intermediate knowledge when answering the survey items related to breastfeeding. The number of correct answers ranged from 4 (26.67%) to 15 (100%) and the average was 9.39 correct answers. The mean score obtained in the breastfeeding knowledge test was correlated with the variables age, level of education, family income, self-assessment of knowledge and guidance received during prenatal care or in hospital. Only the level of schooling variable was significantly associated with the average knowledge of breastfeeding, with a p-value of 0.013. This study showed the importance of mothers' knowledge about breastfeeding for its practice and prevalence. Despite the fact that the majority of puerperal women received guidance during the prenatal period and/or maternity hospital, most of them showed intermediate knowledge on the subject. This shows that there are still gaps to be filled by health institutions, professionals and managers.