Breastfeeding Practice and Self-efficacy among First-time Nepalese Adolescent Mothers

Abstract

Young mothers are less likely to initiate and continue breastfeeding compared to adult mothers. There are several factors that influence breastfeeding, especially breastfeeding self-efficacy. This descriptive comparative study aimed to describe breastfeeding practice within the first six months of the postpartum period and to compare breastfeeding self-efficacy among Nepalese adolescent first-time mothers who practised different types of breastfeeding. One hundred and fourteen first-time Nepalese adolescent mothers were interviewed on breastfeeding self-efficacy and breastfeeding practice at six weeks postpartum at the Well Baby Clinic in Paropakar Maternity and Women's Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal. However, 111 and 100 mothers were followed-up by telephone interviews on breastfeeding practice at three months and six months postpartum perspectively. The research instruments included the breastfeeding self-efficacy short-form scale (BSES-SF) developed by Dennis (2002) and the breastfeeding practice developed by Yimyam (2013). Validity of the instruments was tested by the original authors. The reliability coefficients of the BSES-SF was found to be 0.86 and the breastfeeding practice scale was 1.00 on reproducibility test. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and One Way analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

The results revealed that the rate of exclusive breastfeeding practice at six weeks (93.9%) and three months (93.7%) were very high, whereas the rate of exclusive breastfeeding practice at six months decreased sharply to 69.0%. At six weeks and three months, exclusive and partial breastfeeding mothers had higher scores of breastfeeding self-efficacy compared to no breastfeeding mothers at the significant level of .001 and .05 respectively. At six months, exclusive breastfeeding mothers had higher breastfeeding self-efficacy score than those with partial breastfeeding and no breastfeeding at the significant level of .001. However, there was no difference in breastfeeding self-efficacy between partial breastfeeding and no breastfeeding mothers. The result of this study could be useful for health care providers in developing strategies to enhance breastfeeding self-efficacy for exclusive breastfeeding practice among Nepalese adolescent mothers, especially at six months when the exclusive breastfeeding rate is dramatically low.