Breastfeeding needs assessment in southern Vietnam: Preparing for scale-up of father involvement intervention

Father involvement in the lives of infants can improve infant health and development. Fathers who
received the Saving Brains: Father involvement in Vietnam community-based intervention supported their wives to breastfeed more exclusively (J. Rempel, L. Rempel, Vui & Long, 2017), were more attached to their infants right from birth, interacted more with their infants than fathers in control communities and their infants were developmentally more advanced (L. Rempel, J. Rempel, Khuc & Vui, 2016). A community in southern Vietnam is considering scaling-up this intervention. The objective of this current study was to obtain regional breastfeeding and father breastfeeding involvement needs assessment data.
Data collectors interviewed 355 mothers of infants less than 1-year-old using a closed-ended
questionnaire. About 20% of the mothers reported not breastfeeding within 6 hours after birth and 16% did not feed colostrum. Although 53% fed some infant formula milk on the first day postpartum, almost 80% waited for 3 months or longer to feed formula again and 93% continued breastfeeding longer than 6 months. Grandparents and husbands were the most likely to have recommended that mothers feed formula. Mothers reported the frequency of 13 father breastfeeding support behaviors. Most fathers provided a moderate level of support. When fathers provided more breastfeeding support, mothers were more likely to feed colostrum and less likely to stop breastfeeding in the first year.
Results indicate a need to increase breastfeeding exclusivity in the first days and that father
breastfeeding support could increase exclusivity. Results have been communicated to local health
authorities to support a proposal to integrate a father-involvement intervention into the community health system. It is expected that training lay health workers to counsel new fathers to provide breastfeeding support and to interact with their infants right from birth will significantly improve infant health and development.