THE IMPACT OF COUNSELING OF EARLY BREAST-FEEDING INITIATION ON DELIVERY MOTHERS IN PARE PARE CITY SOUTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA

The aims of the research are to assess the difference between the knowledge and attitude of delivery mothers before intervention and the one after intervention, to assess the delivery mothers??? practice in giving early breast-feeding initiation, and to assess the impact of counseling of early breast-feeding initiation on delivery mothers after intervention in Pare pare city. The research was a quasi-experimental study with non randomized control group pre-post test design. The sample consisted of 200 pregnant mothers whose pregnant age samples from 35 to 36 weeks in Pare pare. The data were obtained by questionnaire. They were analyzed by using wilcoxon, mann whitney, and linier regression tests. The results of the research indicate that there is a difference between mothers??? knowledge (p = 0,000) and attitude (p = 0.000) on early breast-feeding initiation before intervention and the one after intervention. There is 55.0% of mothers who perform early breast-feeding initiation after they get intervention. The most dominant variable influence on mother???s knowledge is audio-visual media about early breast-feeding (p = 0.001), but there is no variable giving dominant influence on mother???s attitude about early breast-feeding (p > 0.05). On the other hand, audio-visual media has dominant influence on the practice of early breast-feeding initiation (p = 0.014). Therefore, health department of Pare pare city, public health centre, and hospitals need to give socialization on importance of early breast-feeding initiation to midwives as the prior people who make contact with pregnant mothers to conduct early breast-feeding initiation