Prenatal Discussions about Breast-Feeding: Few and Far Between

Clinicians who provide prenatal care play a critical role in promoting breast-feeding. To assess the nature of breast-feeding discussions between patients and their clinicians at a large academic medical center, researchers audio-recorded 172 first prenatal visits with 6 certified nurse midwives, 5 certified nurse practitioners, and 36 obstetric residents.

Overall, fewer than one third of visits included any discussion of breast-feeding and only 2% included an explicit recommendation that breast-feeding is superior to formula-feeding.

Midwives were more likely than other clinicians to discuss breast-feeding, but only 42% (vs. 10% of obstetric residents) assessed the patient's prior experience with breast-feeding.