Breastfeeding practice among Malays in community

This book reports a study involving Malay mothers who have had an ongoing breastfeeding experience. The motivation of this book was derived from two main considerations. First, it was driven by the need to explore the influences of religious affiliation experience on breastfeeding practices. Second, mothers’ perception and experience throughout their breastfeeding journey need to be understood in establishing health promotion and education within communities with different context of culture. Our attention on breastfeeding issues is rooted from our life experience as a mother who breastfeeds. The exposures as a health care providers working in Obstetrics Ward allowed us to observe the discrepancy between the religious recommendation and sociocultural perspective within the breastfeeding promotion and education program within the society. Islam recommends breastfeeding since human milk is the most nutritious and best first food for infants. Mother’s preference of infant feeding practice would be influenced by many factors. In Malaysia, breastfeeding was dominantly practiced among Malay whose deeply believe in Islam and any decision should abide by Islamic teachings. Existing literature appear to have limited evidence on Malay mothers’ interpretation and construction of this practice. The decision to breastfeed was believed to be influenced by social and cultural context. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring how religious beliefs and sociocultural would influence the life experience of breastfeeding mothers