A study on effectiveness of video assisted counselling in establishing and sustaining appropriate breast feeding practices

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Breast milk is the only food for the neonate with vast benefits. Although breastfeeding process is natural but extensive research has revealed that mother requires active support for establishing and sustaining appropriate breast feeding practices. Due to high patient load, effective counselling of all pregnant ladies becomes a huge task. Video-assisted counselling has been tried for establishing and sustaining breastfeeding practices as it helps mothers to understand the procedure and process better as the video image is animated with a narrative voice. The objective is to study the effectiveness of video assisted breast feeding counselling in establishing and sustaining breast feeding practices. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A Quasi experimental study was done in Obstetrics and Gynaecology department of BRD Medical College Gorakhpur from September 2019 to February 2020. Study subjects were pregnant ladies admitted in labour room for delivery. A total of 60 study subjects were allocated in Video-assisted breast feeding counselling group and same number in routine counselling group. Video-assisted counselling group breast feeding counselling was done with use of two videos (Video 1 is of 5 minute and 34 seconds duration and Video 2 is of 2 minutes and 50 seconds duration) demonstrations in labour room and post natal ward. Routine breast feeding counselling group received routine counselling as done by resident or consultants during their care. After the delivery the study participants were interviewed regarding their profile and breast feeding knowledge, motivation and behaviour and a scoring was done with Min. -0 to Max. 20 score. RESULT: Higher proportion of early initiation of breast feeding was observed in the video assisted counselling group as compared with the routine counselling group. The mean knowledge score of the subjects’ video-assisted counselling group the mean knowledge score was significantly higher. Motivation of mother for breast feeding and improvement in their behaviour and skill in video-assisted counselling group was higher in comparison to routine counselling group. CONCLUSION: Video-assisted counselling was found effective in successful initiation and establishment of breast feeding.