Breastfeeding and its dimensions: an integrative review of health students' knowledge.
Patricia Lima Pereira Peres, Maria Helena do Nascimento Souza, Thaís Emanuele da Conceição and 5 others
PMID 41337528WHAT IT FOUND
Health students' breastfeeding knowledge focuses heavily on biology and clinical management.
They rarely learn about sociocultural barriers, laws, or complementary feeding. This gap means new graduates may lack the context needed to support mothers beyond technical advice.
Key findings
01Students' knowledge was primarily limited to the biological and management aspects of lactation.
02Sociocultural dimensions, healthy complementary feeding, legislation, and breastfeeding protection policy were rarely explored in the analyzed studies.
03None of the analyzed studies considered the legislative dimension of breastfeeding.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The review included only 17 articles, which the authors note is a small number. The studies were primarily cross-sectional surveys, which cannot determine causality or the effectiveness of educational interventions. The authors did not use a detailed protocol for assessing the methodological quality of the included studies. The classification of studies into dimensions was done by the authors without a standardized external validation process.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that health students are well-prepared to counsel families on all aspects of infant feeding. The review shows a significant gap in training regarding sociocultural barriers, legislation, and complementary feeding, meaning new graduates may provide technically correct but contextually inadequate advice.