Knowledge of medical students about breastfeeding

Abstract

Breastfeeding (BF) is essential for the development of the child and the promotion of a bond between mother and child. Therefore, it is essential that medical students know how to advise on the subject, to stimulate BF, so this study aimed to identify their knowledge in relation to BF knowledge, guidance, orientation, and management. Cross-sectional study with 252 medical students from a private university, carried out in the second semester of 2021 and first semester of 2022. The students answered a questionnaire that investigated seven domains that evaluated the knowledge and experience about BF. The Stata Program, version 16.0, was used in the statistical analyses. Chi-square test was applied to verify differences between students with no prior knowledge about AM (<7th period) and those with prior knowledge (>7th period). It was observed that students with prior knowledge obtained 65% (95%CI 56.2% - 73.0%) of performance in the general knowledge item about AM, while students without knowledge had 13.2% (95%CI 8.3 % - 20.2%). The subject with the best performance in both groups, with no statistically significant difference, was on the effectiveness of BF (96.0%; 95%CI 92.8 - 97.8). The content with the worst performance was the expression of breast milk, where 10.8% (95%CI 6.5 - 17.5) of students with no prior knowledge and 16.3% (95%CI 10.7 - 23.9) with knowledge got a better score. In view of the results obtained, it was concluded that students from the 7th to 12th period have more knowledge about the subject compared to students from the initial periods, even with poor performance in the domain expression of breast milk.