Opinions and basic knowledge on breastfeeding among sanitary staff

Aims: To determine the basic knowledge and opinions about breast feeding that exists in the staff in some primary care centres. Design: Descriptive transversal study based on a survey submitted to the Health Service staff of Health District 2 (Comunidad Valenciana, Spain). Main Results: The study found that 95% of the personnel interviewed agree with the fact that breast feeding is the best food for the babies. However still 20% of the interviewed think that mother milk can be of bad quality, 36% of the professionals interviewed think that mothers should educate the new-born child into a feeding timetable instead of feeding by request and 29% think that teats and pacifiers calm and relax the baby, favouring then breast feeding. Conclusions: From this study we have concluded that it would be necessary to have a basic protocol relative to breast feeding and it has to be divulged to all the people involved in the health system in order to correct wrong knowledge broadly extended.