Evaluation the Effect of Health education Program on Safe Breast Feeding Practice in a Rural Area in Dakahlia Governorate

Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from human breast rather than from a baby bottle or other container. (1)Mothers have poor knowledge of benefits of breastfeeding and they face many problems during breastfeeding because of illiteracy and ignorance. (8)In this study the effect of health education program on safe breastfeeding practice & its influence in enhancement of exclusive breastfeeding was studied.Aim:To raise the awareness of recently lactating women and improve their practices regarding breastfeeding.Objectives:1-To assess current knowledge of lactating mothers regarding exclusive breastfeeding practice.2-To plan and implement a health education program for a group of recently lactating women.3-To evaluate the program through pre- and post- questionnaires.Materials and methods:Design:An intervention study, self-matched design.Target population:Lactating mothers with infants less than 6 months in age and attending El Nesemia family health unit.Inclusion criteria:Recently lactating mothers during first six months with infants apparently normalSampling technique:Systematic random sample was drawn from the target population with a ration 2:1.Tools:Data were collected through:1- Constructed interview questionnaire which covers sociodemographic data,obstetric history, medical history, infant age and sex and knowledge of mothers regarding exclusive breastfeeding and its skills, pre-intervention and 3 weeks post-intervention.2- Health education program:Concerning exclusive breastfeeding awareness and skills management, it involved 2 educational sessions using written materials in the form of a booklet in Arabic summarized the program, also posters and films used to demonstrate breastfeeding technique..