IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v20y1985i11p1143-1150.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sources of influence on infant feeding practices in Hong Kong

Author

Listed:
  • Hung, Beatrice K. M.
  • Ling, Lydia
  • Ong, S. G.

Abstract

The breastfeeding rate in Hong Kong is low compared to the rates in Western countries. To understand the relative importance of different sources of influence on infant feeding practices, 714 Chinese mothers with infants aged 4 weeks to 6 months were studied. It was found that the bottlefeeding mothers were influenced more by the medical professionals who did not support breastfeeding. This influence was further reinforced by the mass media and particularly television advertisements on infant formulae. The successful breastfeeding mothers, on the other hand, were influenced more by their social networks through which they were told of the dangers of bottlefeeding. The failed breastfeeding mothers differed from the other groups in the lack of support they experienced from friends and relatives. Although they received professional encouragement to breastfeed, they were more sheltered from the influence of mass media and social networks. From these findings, it is suggested that different sources of influence are related to different feeding practices. However, to be able to continue with the practice that one has chosen, the availability of social support is essential. Implications of these findings are discussed and several recommendations to promote breastfeeding are made.

Suggested Citation

  • Hung, Beatrice K. M. & Ling, Lydia & Ong, S. G., 1985. "Sources of influence on infant feeding practices in Hong Kong," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 20(11), pages 1143-1150, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:20:y:1985:i:11:p:1143-1150
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(85)90191-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adesh Agarwal, 1995. "Mass Media and Health Promotion in Indian Villages," Psychology and Developing Societies, , vol. 7(2), pages 217-236, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:20:y:1985:i:11:p:1143-1150. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.