The need for educational intervention for breastfeeding women and the professional practice of midwives in France to promote breastfeeding: A joint explanatory study.

In France, breastfeeding prevalence is high at birth, but its continuation remains low compared with other high-income countries, despite worldwide public health recommendations. Midwives offer parenting classes in an experimental manner without considering the importance of education in their interventions. The objectives of this study were to identify the teaching strategies and learning environments offered by midwives and their effect on women's perception of usefulness and their breastfeeding competence, to assess midwives' perception of usefulness and their pedagogical competencies. A comparative mixed study of 20 hospital midwives and 53 breastfeeding women (at 3 and 30 days postpartum) was conducted between January and August 2022 in two maternity units in France. Comparing the two periods, positive effects were found about breastfeeding women's level of knowledge: usefulness of learning theoretical (p=0.01) and practical (p=0.00) knowledge; and their breastfeeding management: signs of lactation (p=0.00), breast engorgement (p=0.04), and behavior (p=0.04). It positively reinforced the development of self-esteem (p=0.00) and commitment to breastfeeding (p=0.00). Midwives expressed strong motivation to use an appropriate teaching strategy and provide a supportive learning environment for women to improve their educational interventions (mean motivation score 7.7/10). The study results can promote research to examine educational interventions modeled according to the theories in education. Critical realism can be used to evaluate these interventions to elucidate how a program based on educational engineering can contribute to breastfeeding promotion and achieving the 2030 goals of WHO.

Clinical trial registration: The study was registered on the official website of ClinicalTrials.gov.

Identifier: ID NCT05271812.