Christelle,
You are correct my memory was flawed. I'm glad you picked me up on it. I
should have checked the pieces of paper before I posted. The review is large
but the differences between the studies are huge in terms of design (ie just
how support was provided, how long did they follow up mothers for etc) and I
think that this seriously weakens the confidence I would place in the
conclusions. It's really important IMO to look carefully at the actual
studies in this case because I think the review has cast too wide a net.
Karleen Gribble
Australia

> I found a systematic review (2001)of Cochrane , Medline and Embase from
> Sikorski et al, which gives a different conclusion.
> I cite: "There is clear evidence for the effectiviness of professional
> support on the duration of any breastfeeding although the strength of its
> effect on the rate of exclusive breastfeeding is uncertain.  Lay support
is
> effective in promoting exclusive breastfeeding while the strength of its
> effect on the duration of any breastfeeding is also uncertain."
> This is a very large review. Twenty eligible randomised or
quasi-randomised
> controlled trials from 10 countries were identified involving 23 712
mother-
> infant pairs.  The review is cited as "Sikorski J, Renfrew MJ, Pindoria S,
> Wade A. Support for breastfeeding mothers (Cochrane Review) in The
Cochrane
> Library, Issue 4, 2003.
> It seems like the support of professionals and peer support are
> complementary.  However I wonder: the exclusivity of bf has an important
> influence on the duration of bf.  If professionals had no influence on the
> exclusivity of bf at all, it should be expectable that the influence on
the
> duration of bf was not so large either.
> I agree with you: those mothers who feed for a very long time very often
> have had peer support.
>
>

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