The importance of breastfeeding in newborns and the use of bottles and cups: an integrative review

Abstract

Studying the importance of breastfeeding as a form of nutrition for babies is one of the contents to be known by nurses, because in the postpartum period, and throughout the first year of life, the child makes regular visits to the health system, thus enabling monitoring related to the baby's growth and feeding, especially during the first months of life. To analyze the importance of breastfeeding for newborn nutrition and the nurse's intervention in this scenario. The search for studies was carried out in the databases NCBI/PubMed (National Center for BiotechnologyInformation), SciELO (Scientific Electronic Lirary Online), Google Scholar and Lilacs - Bireme (Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Science Health). Inclusion criteria were used to define the content: articles available in full, in Portuguese and English, from 2015 to 2021 with free access and relevant to the theme. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 10 articles were selected to be analyzed in this review article. In these studies, it was noticed that the reasons for discontinuing breastfeeding occur more for social and cultural reasons than for health reasons, all these aspects demonstrate that the lack of knowledge of the lactating woman about the benefits of breastfeeding is a relevant factor., so that the selected articles highlight the need for nurses to intervene in this process to promote knowledge. The replacement of cups and bottles in a child's nutrition process should occur when breastfeeding is not an option, either for clinical or social reasons, on the other hand, the impact of this replacement is notorious, because the child does not manages to reach an adequate level of nutrition, thus it is up to the nurse to monitor the lactating woman and present the main benefits of breastfeeding.