Contextualizing the Health Promotion of Breastfeeding: An integrative Review of Parent and Provider experiences in Canada

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Published: Oct 6, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18192/aporia.v15i2.6506
Keywords:
breastfeeding, health education, health promotion, public health

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Hermandeep Deo
Fraser Health Authority
Emmanuela Ojukwu
University of British Columbia
Geertje Boschma
University of British Columbia

Abstract

Improving the rates of breastfeeding has been a prime interest of Public Health Nurses focusing on health promotional strategies as outlined by the World Health Organization. However, evidence of the perceptions held by perinatal families regarding the encouragement to breastfeed is lacking. With the goal of uncovering existing research, an integrative review was conducted, retrieving nine studies. Themes included: variables of delivery (beliefs and ambiguity), outcomes of receivers (expectations, emotions, empowerment verses pressure), and contextual factors (social, cultural, and political forces). Notable differences between the experiences of women in differing social locations were found. The results demonstrate a need for professionals and policymakers to consider the nuanced ways in which individuals experience breastfeeding health promotional messaging. Unintended impacts of this strategy potentially widen breastfeeding inequities between the groups most and least advantaged in society. The diversity of Canadians was found to be vastly underrepresented in the literature.

Article Details

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Vol. 15 No. 2 (2023)
Section
Articles
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Author Biographies

Emmanuela Ojukwu, University of British Columbia

Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dr Ojukwu’s research intersects through major aspects of health including racial and gender health disparities, minority health, maternal-infant health, sexual health, social determinants of health, management of chronic illnesses and infectious diseases, health promotion, among others.

Geertje Boschma, University of British Columbia

Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Boschma studies nursing and health care history, with special emphasis on mental health and the transition to community mental health in the latter half of the 20th century. She explores the ways nurses, clients and families have experienced changes in mental health care and contributed to them. Her research includes oral history approaches to capture people’s health experience and to examine the social context and complexity of nursing work and knowledge.