A Review of the Role of Health Care Workers in Promoting Awareness and Acceptance of Exclusive Breastfeeding among Mothers

Abstract

Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) has been found to be the best means of ensuring the health, growth and development of infants. However, for certain reasons, some mothers do not practice it. The responsibility of passing on information on the relevance of this practice mostly lies in the hands of the healthcare workers. Nevertheless, a critical appraisal of related studies has shown that some health workers have little or no knowledge of the advantages of the EBF as such themselves also do not practice it. This literature review article was aimed at presenting the roles of health care workers in fostering the knowledge and practice of exclusive breastfeeding among women by participating in regular relevant trainings, educating and encouraging the husbands and wives to practice EBF as well as follow-up of mothers during post-natal care to ensure the practice is continued. Relevant articles obtained from journal repositories such as PubMed and Researchgate were reviewed to provide a holistic review of the subject topic. The article highlighted the need for health care workers to actively participate in improving the practice of exclusive breastfeeding by gaining the needed knowledge and ensuring they pass same to the mothers. Training and retraining of health workers was identified as the major means of promoting the awareness and practice of exclusive breastfeeding among mothers.