The role of the nurse in preventing early weaning

Abstract

The early weaning is a world’s (or global) chalenge and healthcare’s professionals have an importante role in supporting exclusive breastfeeding. The aim of this paper is to identify the factors related to the early weaning and the nurse’s role in promoting breastfeeding, since assistance in the prenatal and in the childcare of the primary care to hospital area; antipartum, childbirth and postpartum. It’s about a descriptive study from a critical bibliographic review, performed by searching in database of scientific articles. The study allowed to understand that the practice of breastfeeding brings benefits to both mother and baby, besides reinforcing the bond between them. Knowing that the early weaning takes place for several reasons, such as maternal age, firstness, low education level, premature use of milk formulas and pacifiers breast-related disorders, maternal labor, urbanization, smoking, lack of incentive from family and society, besides deficiencies in the attention to health, it is the nurse’s responsibility to ensure the continuity of breastfeeding through health education in prenatal, childbirth and in the postpartum period, especially in the first days after delivery, as well as to involve the family in this moment.