![]() Nevertheless, exclusive breastfeeding under six months in China is still suboptimal the latest national Chinese data from 2013 showed that the exclusive breastfeeding rate under six months was only 18.6%, which was even lower than the rate in 2008 (27.6%). Moreover, China initiated a national Basic Public Health Service program in 2009 to provide universal basic public health services for all residents, for which maternal and child health care workers are required to provide face-to-face counseling to women during antenatal care visits, hospital delivery, newborn home, postnatal care and child health care visits. Over the past two decades, China has adopted the WHO’s feeding recommendations and implemented programs to promote breastfeeding and complementary feeding, such as the infant and young child feeding (IYCF) guidelines and the integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) guidelines. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) jointly recommend that infants should be exclusively breastfed for six months after birth, and be continuously breastfed to 2 years or beyond. Exclusive breastfeeding provides infants with the best start to life by ensuring adequate nutrition and protection from infection, as well as fostering early growth and development. The benefits of breastfeeding for both infants and mothers have been well recognized. Increasing the exclusive breastfeeding rate in the first 6 months of life to at least 50% is one of the 6 WHO global nutrition targets for 2025. Trial registrationĬhinese Clinical Trial Registry –ChiCTR1800017364. Thereby this may offer a comprehensive intervention to promote exclusive breastfeeding in China and other settings. Our results will provide scientific evidence for the effect of health education through WeChat on breastfeeding. This study is the first effort to promote exclusive breastfeeding through WeChat in China. Survival analysis will be used to compare the overall duration of any and exclusive breastfeeding between groups. Intention-to-treat-analysis will be used. ![]() ![]() Secondary outcomes include the overall duration of any and exclusive breastfeeding across the first 6 months postpartum mothers’ knowledge of breastfeeding the proportion of early initiation of breastfeeding and the timing of the introduction of solid food to infants. The primary outcome is difference in the exclusive breastfeeding rate at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months postpartum between the intervention group and the control group. The outcome assessments are conducted at baseline through face-to-face interviews, and at one week, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months postpartum by telephone interviews. Breastfeeding knowledge and promotion information will be delivered to the intervention group through a WeChat official account from 3 months pregnancy to 6 months postpartum. pregnant women with a severe disease and complications of pregnancy or HIV-1 will be excluded. Women who are 14–36 weeks pregnant will be randomized to routine antenatal and postnatal care, or routine care plus the WeChat breastfeeding education. The study is designed as a randomized controlled trial in rural Qinghai Province, China. The current paper describes the study protocol of a WeChat intervention that aims to promote breastfeeding in rural areas in China. As mobile technologies have rapidly developed, mobile communication apps such as WeChat (one of the largest social networking platforms in China) are well accepted and have the potential to improve health behaviors in a convenient way. However, the exclusive breastfeeding rate in China is quite low and decreasing which makes it urgent to explore effective ways to reverse the current downward trend. An exclusive breastfeeding rate in the first 6 months of life of at least 50% is one of the six World Health Organization global nutrition targets for 2025.
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