Father-Involvement Breastfeeding Telephone Support for Exclusive Breastfeeding and Postnatal Care

This study focuses on the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for infants during their first six months of life, which includes protection against various illnesses and reduced risk of mortality and morbidity. The study aims to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of a breastfeeding telephone support intervention that involves both mothers and fathers during the postpartum period. The main goals are to assess the impact of this father-involvement intervention on the prevalence and duration of exclusive breastfeeding, postnatal depression, and parent-infant bonding. In this randomized controlled trial, a group of postpartum mothers and fathers will be assigned to either the experimental group, receiving the father-involvement telephone support intervention, or the control group, receiving standard postpartum care. The intervention consists of four weekly 20-30 minute telephone-administered counseling sessions on breastfeeding for mothers and fathers during the first month postpartum. The main outcome measures include the prevalence and duration of exclusive breastfeeding at 1, 2, 4, and 6 months postpartum, as well as postnatal depression and parent-infant bonding assessed using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ) at 2 and 6 months postpartum. The results of this study may help policy makers and health professionals design better health promotion programs for breastfeeding families, potentially reducing the public health burden of childhood illness.