Good Essay About Key Policy Areas And Obstacles And Use Of Media

Breast feeding is one vital public policy issue taking into consideration its health benefits bestowed towards both the mother and the child. Currently it is conventionally understood that an infant should feed on mother milk for the first six months exclusively after which complimentary foods can be introduced. However, breast milk should not stop. The introduction of the breastfeeding policy would be useless if the public is not made aware. Despite the increased efforts to create awareness on breastfeeding, there are barriers to success that should be considered.
Practice environment can contribute to the barriers of successful implementation and promotion of exclusive policies to breastfeeding. For instance, within the health care environment capacity building has not been well embraced by the health professionals. This associated to breastfeeding; it is evident that nurses are not really supporting exclusive breastfeeding. For instance, some of health practitioners recommend use of food supplements. This hinders the campaign success on exclusive breastfeeding habits for mothers. Another barrier linked to environment is that often mothers see breastfeeding to be embarrassing while doing it within public environment (Nickel, Labbok & University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2011). This perception of mothers creates a huge barrier to success of exclusive breastfeeding campaigns. Additionally, it is evident that mothers who are employed have a perception that breastfeeding cannot be done within the workplace due inadequacy of designated places to breastfeed or express milk. Fathers and society members are also place huge barriers to successful breastfeeding programs since they do not support breastfeeding in public.
Educational and practice partnership also creates some barriers to success breastfeeding campaigns. For instance, inadequacy of application of evidenced based practice among the health practitioners to promote breastfeeding hinders successful campaigns. This is linked to the educational and practice partnership. Frequently, inadequate time is one of the most fundamental hindrances to implementation of any evidenced-based practice. Health care environment is also a major contributor to the slow embracement of evidenced based practice with health care system. The reason behind this is the fact that traditional techniques are applied in teaching nursing students on how to carry out quick researches instead of teaching and directing them on best practice (Leigh, Olson, Yamasaki & Shulsky, 2010). Due to old beliefs and techniques, students are not able to implement various recommended interventions to promote breastfeeding initiation and duration among mothers.
Today, there is a rapid technological change in all fields. Technological changes have had a lot of impact to health care. Despite the fact that improved technology supports breastfeeding initiation and duration campaigns, to some extent it is a hindrance. For instance, with the use of technology, imitation of human breast milk is now possible with the introduction of formulas. Breastfeeding mother often opt for these alternatives if they feel that they are not being producing enough milk or even away from home (Mason, Leavitt & Chaffee, 2012). Based on this, technology is seen to bring a hindrance to successful campaigns on exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months. As a result of these feeds, it is now hard to convince mothers and the public as a whole on benefits of breastfeeding since they believe infant formulas have the same ingredients to the breast milk. Additionally, it is also evident that children who have used these formulas have survived and currently healthy within the society.
The above discussed issue also clearly explains barriers linked to the current and future models for care in association to breastfeeding campaigns. In the future, more complex and almost equivalent infant formulas will be developed due to rapid change in technology. This will completely substitute breast milk. Additionally, due to changes in technology, there is little touch between mothers and health providers. The face to face interaction between the mother and the health practitioners is very essential. It enables behavior alteration and change of perspective on breastfeeding. Therefore, the introduction of new technologies that creates a gap between the mother and nurses is a huge hindrance to successful campaigns on breastfeeding.
Additionally, the legislation and regulation that govern quality and safety also acts as a hindrance of the success of breastfeeding campaigns. For instance it is through FDA that infant formulas are introduced into the market substituting breast milk among breastfeeding mothers (Mason, Leavitt & Chaffee, 2012). Additionally, maternity leaves given to mothers are usually short and therefore, a return to work after birth hinders breastfeeding success.

Part B

The use of media campaign has been one of the major successful methods to promote and encourage breastfeeding. Social marketing is one of the most effective intervention processes for behavior changes on issues related to public health issues.
In an attempt to create a positive thinking about breastfeeding I would focus on the 4 Ps, product, price, place and promotion. In this case, the product is the current behaviour that am advocating for which is breastfeeding. Therefore, I will select quality that makes breastfeeding desirable . Price in this case will be emotional , psychological, phyiscal and social rates of breastfeeding as sen by the target audience. Place is the different platforms to communicate my message on breastfeeding depending on the demographics. The promotion strategies should match to the target audience and be received in the baest way. The information communicated will be positive regrading breastfeeding and its benefits to the mother and the child (Liamputtong, 2011).
Some of the factors to consider while selecting the media to use include costs and more imprtantly the level of traffic. The major aim of your information is a particular target audience, it is therefore important to focus ion a medium with a high traffic (Leigh, Olson, Yamasaki & Shulsky, 2010).

References

Liamputtong, P. (2011). Infant Feeding Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Leigh, J. L., Olson, B., Yamasaki, J., & Shulsky, D. (2010). Breast is best but bottle is next: Mothers' perception of the portrayals of breastfeeding in the media. University of Houston Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M. W. (2012). Policy & politics in nursing and health care. St. Louis, Mo: Elsevier/Saunders.
Moore, Trinie, Gauld, Robin, & Williams, Sheila. (2013). Implementing Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative policy: the case of New Zealand public hospitals. (BioMed Central Ltd.) BioMed Central Ltd.
Nickel, N. C., Labbok, M. H., & University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (2011). Breastfeeding friendly healthcare: A mixed methods evaluation of the implementation and outcomes of maternity practices to support breastfeeding. (UNC electronic theses and dissertations collection.) Chapel Hill, N.C: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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