Abstract
Introduction: Women's health is of particular concern due to reproduction which affects their health. The Saudi community has changed recently in regard to women's rights and education. Those changes are expected to have a great impact on breastfeeding practice and contraception use.
Objectives: To assess knowledge and practice of breastfeeding and contraception for post-partum women.
Methods: Questionnaire based cross-sectional study for postpartum women in 3 primary health care centers, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Results: 382 participants were included. Only 12.8% were exclusively breastfeeding their babies. while others were on mixed feeding (45%) or formula milk alone (42.2%). The most common barrier against breastfeeding was insufficiency of breastmilk in 51.8% of mothers. Women with three or less children were able to breastfeed their babies more than women with more than three children, (P-value=0.012). Vaginal delivery was significantly associated with a higher percentage of breastfeeding than C-section, (P-value=0.045). Almost half of the participants (49%) were using contraception; 45% of them chose their contraception based on their physicians' recommendations, 42.8% were using combined oral contraceptive pills. More than half the participants (67.8%) had good knowledge about breastfeeding and contraception. Older age was significantly related to higher knowledge; 75% of women who were 30 years and above had good knowledge (P-value=0.003). Women with three children or more (76.7%) have better knowledge than those with less than three children (P-value=0.01). The majority of mothers who received antenatal clinical advice about breastfeeding and contraception (72% ) had better knowledge, (P-value=0.003).
Conclusion :The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding was low (12.8%) despite the good knowledge in 67.8% of the participants. Around half of the participants were using contraception: the most common method was combined oral contraceptive pills (42.8%). Higher knowledge about breastfeeding and contraception were found with older age, having more than 3 children and receiving antenatal clinical advice.