Effect of breastfeeding education and support on promoting breastfeeding: a literature review.

Despite the widely documented benefits of breastfeeding, initiation rates and duration of breastfeeding lag behind the goals set in Healthy People 2010. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of breastfeeding education and support, which aim to encourage women to initiate and continue breastfeeding according to The Healthy People 2010 objectives; articles published in the United States from January 2000 to July 2005 are included. Effects of these interventions on different demographic groups are reviewed to assess the importance of each intervention in particular focus group.