Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

DOI

10.3390/nu16111565

Publication Title

Nutrients

Volume

16

Issue

11

Pages

1565 (1-16)

Abstract

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a nutrition assistance program in the U.S. WIC served 2.5 million eligible Hispanic women, infants, and children under the age of five in 2021, which is WIC's largest racial/ethnic group. However, limited research has been conducted to understand Hispanic WIC participants' perceptions of WIC breastfeeding recommendations and their breastfeeding decisions. For this qualitative study, we interviewed 18 of these pregnant and postpartum WIC participants on their experiences and decision-making processes related to breastfeeding. Hispanic cultures and home country norms were identified as prominent influences on breastfeeding decisions, along with perceptions of WIC's breastfeeding support. These results can help the WIC program to refine its breastfeeding education to better meet the needs of Hispanic participants.

Rights

© 2024 by the authors.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.

Data Availability

Article states: "The data presented in this study are not available from the corresponding author due to the sensitive nature of the interview scripts."

Original Publication Citation

Fisher, E., Patel, P., Wouk, K. G., Neupane, B., Alkhalifah, F., Bartholmae, M. M., Tang, C., & Zhang, Q. (2024). Breastfeeding perceptions and decisions among Hispanic participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children: A qualitative study. Nutrients, 16(11), 1-16, Article 1565. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16111565

ORCID

0009-0000-8428-6015 (Patel), 0000-0002-3498-7048 (Alkhalifah), 0000-0001-8790-3947 (Bartholmae), 0000-0002-7203-2664 (Tang), 0000-0002-8513-1573 (Zhang)

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