Many New Moms Get ‘Bad’ Advice, Study Finds

The National Institutes of Health funded a study surveying new mothers to inquire about the source of their infant care advice ranging from baby sleep positions to immunizations to breastfeeding.

Ny Despite health care facts displayed the avantages of nursing and ways to stop cot death cases, a number of medical professionals aren’t arriving on the facts to actually new mothers in the United States, investigators said on Monday.

According to Marian Willinger, Ph.D., of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), new mothers are more likely to listen to their physician’s advice. Learning about infant care and its updated recommendations can save many newborn lives as well as help new mothers cope with the stress and joy that is motherhood. Many new mothers report no physician advice on infant sleep position, breastfeeding. Advice mothers heard from the media was also sometimes out of step with medical recommendations. Room-sharing with parents-but not bed-sharing-is the recommended practice for safe infant sleep.

“Reasons may include a lack of knowledge of the recommendations, a perception of controversy surrounding the recommendations, or actual disagreement with the recommendations” Dr. Staci Eisenberg, pediatrician at Boston Medical Center and one of the authors of the study, told CBS News in an email.

And when mothers got advice elsewhere, especially from non-professionals, it was more likely to vary.

Family members seemed to provide the worst recommendations, with two-thirds of advice being inconsistent with current guidelines. However, 10 to 15 percent of the advice given on breastfeeding and pacifier use was not consistent with recommendations, and slightly more than 25 percent was not consistent with recommendations for sleep position or location.

Physicians and others in a position to offer advice to mothers may fail to do so because they do not know about recommendations or because they disagree with a recommendation, the study authors wrote.

“Our study highlights the need for parents to be proactive participants in their child’s health care”.

The study was published online July 27 in Pediatrics.

The study suggests doctors do not give advice equally: Black, Hispanic and first-time mothers reported more advice than white and experienced mothers.

For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that caregivers always place a baby on his or her back for sleep at night and for naps. Similarly, of the 49% who received sleep location advice from physicians, only 41% received recommendation consistent advice. Seventy percent of mothers said they got advice from the media on breast-feeding, and much of it didn’t match recommendations. “But I would encourage parents to ask questions if they don’t feel like their provider has been entirely clear, or if they have any questions about the recommendations”.

Despite these findings, Eisenberg says new moms should not be discouraged or confused.