Breast is best: Breastfeeding curriculum for physician assistants
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Infants who are breastfed have a reduced risk of ear, gastrointestinal, urinary and respiratory tract infections, as well as decreased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, diabetes, obesity, and allergic diseases. Breastfeeding mothers benefit by having a lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer, type II diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Not breastfeeding is a financial burden on our healthcare system and nation as a whole. Breastfeeding saves $1,200 per year in formula cost and lessens the amount of hospitalizations and office visits. Breastfeeding is not part of the current blueprint for Physician Assistant (PA) curriculum. However, the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding urges health care providers, including PAs, to provide support and educate mothers to meet their breastfeeding goals. The purpose of our project is to create educational materials that can be used by other PA programs. Readily available materials will increase the likelihood of other PA programs providing breastfeeding curriculum and improve the knowledge of practicing PAs. The educational materials include a 2-hour breastfeeding PowerPoint presentation with speaker narration and a student handout to use during the presentation. This presentation includes information about the benefits of breastfeeding, physiology of breastfeeding, proper latch, care of breastfeeding infants, and complications that may be encountered. A pretest and posttest assessment are provided and can be used to document the improved knowledge. The implementation of this educational module will increase the knowledge of future practicing physician assistants who will provide healthcare to breastfeeding mothers and breastfed infants.
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Research completed in the Department of Physician Assistant, College of Health Professions
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v. 16