Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences

Women with learning disabilities are less likely to breastfeed than other women. They may find it hard to understand or learn feeding techniques or know that they have infant feeding choices. This population may be supported during their pregnancies by a range of professionals with differing priorit...

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Autores principales: Dowling, Sally, Douglass, Emma, Lucas, Geraldine, Johnson, Clare
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749617/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36147016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13432
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author Dowling, Sally
Douglass, Emma
Lucas, Geraldine
Johnson, Clare
author_facet Dowling, Sally
Douglass, Emma
Lucas, Geraldine
Johnson, Clare
author_sort Dowling, Sally
collection PubMed
description Women with learning disabilities are less likely to breastfeed than other women. They may find it hard to understand or learn feeding techniques or know that they have infant feeding choices. This population may be supported during their pregnancies by a range of professionals with differing priorities and responsibilities towards both the mother and the baby. This puts considerable pressure on health care professionals including, but not limited to, midwives, infant feeding specialists, health visitors and learning disability nurses. Those who support women with learning disabilities through their journey into motherhood have a responsibility to ensure the women in their care have the information they need to make decisions about a range of issues, including infant feeding. In the absence of dedicated lactation consultants, this is one of many issues to be discussed within time‐limited appointments. Little is known about the experience of supporting women with learning disabilities to make infant feeding decisions from the point of view of health professionals. Using a qualitative descriptive research design, we conducted online, semistructured interviews with seven UK health professionals about their experience of supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding. Thematic analysis identified three themes: the importance of health professionals' having unconditional, positive regard; the need for an individualised approach to supporting women to make infant‐feeding decisions; and being part of the support network. This suggests that women with learning disabilities can make and put into practice infant feeding decisions if they have access to the right support at the right time.
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spelling pubmed-97496172022-12-15 Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences Dowling, Sally Douglass, Emma Lucas, Geraldine Johnson, Clare Matern Child Nutr Original Articles Women with learning disabilities are less likely to breastfeed than other women. They may find it hard to understand or learn feeding techniques or know that they have infant feeding choices. This population may be supported during their pregnancies by a range of professionals with differing priorities and responsibilities towards both the mother and the baby. This puts considerable pressure on health care professionals including, but not limited to, midwives, infant feeding specialists, health visitors and learning disability nurses. Those who support women with learning disabilities through their journey into motherhood have a responsibility to ensure the women in their care have the information they need to make decisions about a range of issues, including infant feeding. In the absence of dedicated lactation consultants, this is one of many issues to be discussed within time‐limited appointments. Little is known about the experience of supporting women with learning disabilities to make infant feeding decisions from the point of view of health professionals. Using a qualitative descriptive research design, we conducted online, semistructured interviews with seven UK health professionals about their experience of supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding. Thematic analysis identified three themes: the importance of health professionals' having unconditional, positive regard; the need for an individualised approach to supporting women to make infant‐feeding decisions; and being part of the support network. This suggests that women with learning disabilities can make and put into practice infant feeding decisions if they have access to the right support at the right time. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9749617/ /pubmed/36147016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13432 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Maternal & Child Nutrition published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Dowling, Sally
Douglass, Emma
Lucas, Geraldine
Johnson, Clare
Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences
title Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences
title_full Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences
title_fullStr Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences
title_full_unstemmed Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences
title_short Supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: UK health care professionals' experiences
title_sort supporting women with learning disabilities in infant feeding decisions: uk health care professionals' experiences
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749617/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36147016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13432
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