CLINICAL PRACTICE GUIDELINE

Benefits of Breastfeeding

Malaya Miles, Hayden Rainwater, Samantha Souther, Ziyu Zheng

University of West Georgia

NURS3400 Nursing Research & Evidence-Based Practice for Registered Nurses

Dr. Katie Morales

June 8, 2022

Contributions of Authors
Malaya Miles wrote clinical practice guideline and helped with summary of the problem
Hayden Rainwater wrote summary of the problem and helped with clinical practice guideline
Samantha Souther wrote the PICO
Ziyu Zheng wrote implications for practice
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Clinical Practice Guideline

The purpose of this paper is to explore clinical practice guidelines (CPG) and their use in

nursing practice. We selected this CPG because proper education and technique for breastfeeding

can greatly improve the health of both mom and baby. Unless otherwise stated, all citations are

from Protecting, Promoting, and Supporting Breastfeeding in Facilities (Guideline: protecting,

promoting and supporting breastfeeding in facilities providing maternity and newborn services.

Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.). The CPG of

Breastfeeding, Protecting, Promoting, and Supporting Breastfeeding in Facilities was published

in 2017 by The World Health Organization (WHO) making it current enough to be scientifically

accurate and a reliable source.

The authors include eleven doctors, a senior nutrition/health advisor, and a senior

scientist from a wide variety of organizations and ethnic backgrounds. The research in this CPG

was gathered from 22 systematic reviews found in the Cochran handbook for systematic reviews

of intervention. The guidelines used were developed by the WHO handbook for guideline

development. The Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation

(GRADE) was organized from low-quality to high-quality evidence. This CPG focus is to

provide evidence-based research recommendations that act as an intervention to promote and

support optimal breastfeeding practices and improve nutrition, health, and development

outcomes. The patient groups that this CPG was designed for are women delivering in any

facility providing maternal and newborn services for their infants. The research and evidence in

this CPG was funded by the Bill and Martha Melinda Gates Foundation. This CPG is level VII

evidence according to LoBiondo-Wood and Haber (2018) WHO (2017).

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Summary of the Problem

In summary, breastfeeding affects both mothers and children. This CPG focuses on breastfeeding

for mothers worldwide who give birth in hospital facilities. Only about 35% of mothers exclusively

breastfeed until 6 months of age as recommended by the WHO, therefore this problem affects roughly

65% of women who do not breastfeed for the recommended period of time. This CPG suggests that new

mothers initiate breastfeeding within an hour of giving birth to their child, room-in with the baby after it

is born, and members of the healthcare team help show the mother how to breastfeed (WHO, 2017).

Implications for Practice

This guideline helps to form an evidence-based protocol to guide primigravida mothers on how to

breastfeed in the hospital. Proper teaching of breastfeeding techniques will improve the health of both the

baby and mother, help the patient save money on formula, and lower the risk of breast cancer for the

mother. The goal of breastfeeding education is to increase mothers’ knowledge and skills, to help them

see breastfeeding as normal behavior, and to help them develop positive attitudes towards breastfeeding

based on pregnancy and past experience. Children face nutritional deficiencies and death every year, and

mothers who do not breastfeed are more likely to develop breast cancer. Research shows that

breastfeeding can benefit both the mother and her baby. For babies, breastfeeding can lower infections,

provide optimal nutrients, decrease deaths, and increase intelligence. Breast cancer can be preventable for

mothers just by breastfeeding. Breastfeeding may reduce the risk of breast cancer for the mother.

Breastfeeding is a long-term battle that The current baby formula shortage affects mothers, babies, and

healthcare workers are facing worldwide. The clinical practice guideline for breastfeeding establishes that

800,000 deaths occur annually in the world in children under 5 years of age and 20,000 deaths of mothers

due to breast cancer when they who do not breastfeed. By promoting and educating mothers about

breastfeeding, it will may save more infant and child lives than any other preventive intervention.
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Interventions to promote breastfeeding are provided prior to the first feeding. Interventions

targeted at individual women include health education, peer support, practical skills training, and early

mother-to-child contact. Breastfeeding time and correct posture for breastfeeding are practice

considerations for new mothers that nurses can promote and educate through practice.

The three main recommendations are: early skin-to-skin contact between mother and child should

be encouraged through breastfeeding; infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of

life; progressive education on how to breastfeed is important for mothers to manage breastfeeding

themselves.

PICO Question

This CPG provided many Population Intervention Comparison Outcome population,

intervention, comparison, and outcome (PICO) questions involving different interventions and

outcomes on how to improve the initiation of breastfeeding. The PICO questions also varied in

who it was specific about. Some were focused on the maternal implementations while others

were focused on the infant and what interventions needed to be implemented on their end as

well. Our team read through them and discussed which PICO question would best represent this

CPG. When discussing each question, we took into consideration what the CPG recommends as

interventions to improve the initiation of breastfeeding in new mothers. This is how our team

arrived at this We propose the following PICO question: Should mothers giving birth be given

antenatal breastfeeding education, compared to not having antenatal breastfeeding education, in

order to increase rates of exclusive breastfeeding during the stay of the facility? Among post-

partum women (P) who receive antenatal breastfeeding education (I), what is the rate of
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exclusive breastfeeding during the stay of the facility (O) compared mothers who do not receive

the antenatal breastfeeding education?

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References

Provide references using APA formatting.

LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (2018). Nursing research: Methods and critical

appraisal for evidence-based practice (9th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

ISBN: 9780323431316

World Health Organization. (2017). Guideline: Protecting, promoting and supporting

breastfeeding in facilities providing maternity and newborn services.

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/259386/9789241550086-eng.pdf?

sequence=1&isAllowed=y