Interventions in primary care to promote breastfeeding: an evidence review for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Ann Intern Med 2008

Background: Evidence suggests that breastfeeding decreases the risk for many diseases in mothers and infants. It is therefore im-portant to evaluate the effectiveness of breastfeeding interventions. Purpose: To systematically review evidence for the effectiveness of primary care–initiated interventions to promote breastfeeding with respect to breastfeeding and child and maternal health outcomes. Data Sources: Electronic searches of MEDLINE, the Cochrane Cen-tral Register of Controlled Trials, and CINAHL from September 2001 to February 2008 and references of selected articles, restricted to English-language publications. Study Selection: Randomized, controlled trials of primary care– initiated interventions to promote breastfeeding, mainly in devel-oped countries. Data Extraction: Characteristics of interventions and comparators, study setting, study design, population characteristics, the propor