Assessment of breastfeeding support practices in maternity wards in the Republic of Moldova
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life is internationally recognized as essential for the health of both the child and the mother. In the Republic of Moldova, as in other countries in the region, there are discrepancies between official recommendations and practices in the field, influenced by factors such as type of birth, medical support, and access to accurate information. The purpose of this study was to analyze mothers" experiences regarding childbirth, infant feeding, and the support provided by medical staff in maternity wards. Methodology. The study was based on responses to an online questionnaire, which sought to collect opinions and experiences regarding the application of the principles of the "Baby-Friendly Hospital" Initiative, promoted by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. The tool assessed: the characteristics of childbirth, how the child was fed in the first 6 months, and the support and information received from medical staff regarding breastfeeding. The data were analyzed descriptively, using frequencies and proportions. Results. Analyzing infant feeding in the first 3 months, it was found that only two-thirds of infants (64.9%) were exclusively breastfed. A quarter of mothers (25.7%) combined breastfeeding with formula, and a smaller proportion (9.4%) fed their babies only formula. Between 3 and 6 months, the proportion of exclusive breastfeeding increased to 70.3% of cases, while 18.9% of mothers continued with formula only, and 10.8% maintained a combination of breastfeeding and formula. In terms of support in the maternity ward, 35.1% of mothers did not receive help with the correct positioning and attachment of the baby to the breast, 13.5% received the incorrect recommendation to breastfeed at fixed intervals (every 2-3 hours), 12.2% of mothers did not receive any advice on breastfeeding frequency, and 29.7% of mothers stated that they did not receive any information on the duration of a breastfeeding session. Conclusions. The study suggests the need to standardize breastfeeding recommendations to ensure consistent and evidence-based information, continuous training of medical staff in maternity wards, especially in practical techniques to support mothers, and the promotion of clear and uniform policies that could contribute to increasing the duration and quality of breastfeeding in the Republic of Moldova.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".