Infant feeding practices of African mothers living in the UK.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Breastfeeding and weaning practices of African mothers living in the United Kingdom.
IRAS ID
200105
Contact name
Adefisayo Odeniyi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 10 months, days
Research summary
Breastfeeding provides optimal nutrition for infants for healthy growth and development and can be considered a low-cost intervention. Despite the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for the initial six months after birth, only about 36% of infants worldwide were exclusively breastfed within the first six months of life as reported by WHO in 2010. Various reasons have been identified for this observed low rate of breastfeeding including societal perception, culture, knowledge, and maternal employment. Studies show that infant feeding practices in developing countries vary from practices in developed countries. In developing countries, it is more of the norm to breastfeed while in most developed countries, breastfeeding is often considered embarrassing and a practice to be carried out in private spaces. Breastfeeding rates in the United Kingdom (UK) are the lowest in Europe and of all developed countries, with only 1% of mothers exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months of infancy. These varying beliefs and attitudes towards infant feeding practices pose a great dilemma, particularly for immigrants from developing countries whose beliefs and perceptions of breastfeeding differ from the new host country. This raises the question of: “what infant feeding practices do immigrant mothers adopt?” To my knowledge, apart from the 1978 study by Goel and colleagues, there have been no recent studies describing the role of acculturation in infant feeding practices of African immigrants in the UK, a population that has been growing steadily in recent years from 0.8% in 2001 to an estimated 2.2% in 2015. The proposed study will fill this gap in knowledge.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NE/0402
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jan 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion