Breastfeeding Education: A Physician and Patient Assessment

Abstract

In the study presented here, Likert scaled surveys derived from the Surgeon General’s Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding (2000) were mailed to 400 practicing physicians in a Midwestern state to assess medical school breastfeeding education. In addition, 500 surveys were mailed to women in the same Midwestern state who had given birth within the last year to determine what type of breastfeeding information they were receiving from their attending physicians. The purpose of this study is to analyze physician breastfeeding education and to ascertain if the data collected from the physicians is congruent with the data collected from the women who had recently given birth. Results of this study indicate that while the majority of physicians reported sufficient levels of breastfeeding education while in medical school, women participating in this study reported that they did not receive compendious breastfeeding information from their attending physicians.