Traditional applications to improve breast milk production of mothers having infants between 0 to 6 months of age

The study was conducted using a descriptive and cross-sectional method to determine the traditional practices of mothers with babies of 0-6 months to increase breast milk.The study was carried out at Public Health Care Centers no 1-14 within the municipal borders of Kütahya. Its sample consisted of 216 mothers.The data were collected through a question form developed by the researcher in accordance with the literature. To collect study data, an official permission from the Provincial Health Directorate of Kütahya and the ethical consent of the Ethical Board of the Faculty of Medicine at Adnan Menderes University were obtained. Mothers were informed on the research and their oral-written consent was obtained. The data were collected between 01.07.2008-20.07.2008 through house visits by the researcher and question-answer method during face-to-face interviews.The data were evaluated using descriptive statistics, chi-square, exact chi-square, and one-way variance analysis (ANOVA).With a mean age of 26.85±4.87, 53.2% of the mothers were primary school graduates, 89.4% were housewives, and 45.8% had insufficient income.90.3% of the mothers breastfed their babies within the first 30 minutes. Although 75% of the mothers planned to feed their babies exclusively with breast milk in their first six months, only 65% of them managed to do so. 72.7% of the mothers think they have sufficient breast milk for their babies and 68.8% of these mothers have infants with adequate weight. 77.8% of the mothers had not been trained about breastfeeding. 19.9% of the mothers did not perform any practices to increase their breast milk, while a few of them (9.2%) used modern practices, and most of them used traditional (47.9%) traditional and traditional+modern practices (42.7%). The food that the mothers most often believe to increase breast milk include water (62%), milk (24.1%), desserts (20.8%), fig (18.1%), onion (17.6%), fruit-fruit juice (16.2%), and vegetables-greens (13.9%),.The practices to increase breast milk are influenced by the age of mothers, their employment status, income status, the number of children alive, their methods of feeding their children, their beliefs about the sufficiency of their breast milk and education status about breastfeeding and measures/practices to increase breast milk, the age of infants, and the period during which the mothers plan to breastfeed their babies (p<0.05).Keywords: Postpartum period, breastfeeding, breast milk, traditional practices