A Study on Breastfeeding and Health Behavior of Breastfeeding Mothers

모유수유모의 모유수유 건강행위에 관한 연구

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the performance level of breastfeeding health behaviors and general characteristics of breastfeeding mothers related to breastfeeding health behaviors. Method: 123 breastfeeding mothers whose infants are between 5-7 months of age participated in this study. Data was collected during a Breastfeeding Infant Contest held in September 2007 in Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do. Health behaviors related to breastfeeding were measured in Likert scale 5 including 20 questions developed by Park et al., and the collected data was analyzed with descriptive statistics, T-test and ANOVA using SPSS program. Result: The performance level on breastfeeding health behaviors scored $3.73{\pm}.35$ on average (5.0 in full score). The score showed that there were significant statistical differences only in the knowledge of breastfeeding between groups. The score of 'enough' knowledge group was higher than that of 'a little short' knowledge group (t=2.071, p=0.045). Conclusion: The performance level on breastfeeding health behaviors was related to the knowledge of breastfeeding in breastfeeding mothers. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance education on breastfeeding health behaviors for mothers of newborns in the hospital and to have a reevaluation process on their performance at the time of revisiting.