Research Thursday. The Role of Paternal Support in Breastfeeding Outcomes: A Meta-Analytic Review
February 20, 2025
Here is the citation.
Zhou Ss, Lu J, Qin A, et al. The role of paternal support in breastfeeding outcomes: a meta-analytic review. Int Breastfeed J. 2024;19(84). doi.org/10.1186/s13006-024-00694-1
Here is the PubMed Link. This article is open access (free).
Here are some thoughts and a little statistics primer.
First, a shoutout to Scientific Breastfeeding – a site I follow on Substack and where I saw this article. I encourage you to check the site out.
The authors of this article systematically reviewed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the impact of paternal support on breastfeeding outcomes. “Paternal support” came in a variety of ways which the authors describe. Studies were included if they involved fathers with healthy newborns and assessed various modalities of oral feeding. The meta-analysis incorporated 8 studies with a total of 2531 participants:
1306 in the intervention group
1225 in the control group