New mothers often get poor doctor advice on baby care

 

 

Health care practitioner groups have issued recommendations and guidelines on all these aspects of infant care based on research, which has found that certain practices can prevent disease and even save lives.

 

The authors surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 1,000 new mothers and inquired about infant care advice they had received from doctors.

 

In the research, 20 percent of mothers said they did not receive advice from their doctors regarding current recommendations on breastfeeding or on placing infants to sleep on their backs, a practice long proven to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

 

More than 50 percent of mothers reported that they received no advice on where their infants should sleep. Room-sharing with parents, but not bed-sharing, is the recommended practice for safe infant sleep.

 

Marian Willingern of National Institute of Child Health and Human Development said that this survey showed that physicians have an opportunity to provide new mothers with much-needed advice on how to improve infant health and even save infant lives.

 

The study is published in Pediatrics and funded by the National Institutes of Health.