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Introduction
There has been significant reliable evidence produced over recent years to show that breast feeding had diverse and compelling advantages to infants, mothers, families and societies (1, 3).
Epidemiological studies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other developed countries showed that breast feeding decreases the incidence and / or severity of diarrhea, lower respiratory tract infections, otitis media, bacteremia, bacterial meningitis, botulism, urinary tract infections, and necrotizing enterocollitis. Moreover, additional studies show that breast feeding has possible protective effect against sudden infant death syndrome, insulin dependant diabetes mellitus, Chron's disease, ulcerative colitis, lymphoma, allergic diseases, and other chronic digestive diseases. In addition, breast feeding may lead to possible enhancement of cognitive development (1, 2, and 3).
Breast feeding has possible health benefits for the mothers as well. It promotes mother infant bonding, promotes uterine involution, and decreases the incidence of premenopausal breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and maternal osteoporosis. Recent studies demonstrate that breast feeding women have an earlier return to pre-pregnant weight and delayed resumption of ovulation leading to increase child spacing (1,2).
"In addition to individual health benefits, breast feeding provides significant social and economic benefits to the nation, including reduced health care costs and reduced employee absenteeism from care attributed to child illness. The significantly lower incidence illness in the breast fed infants allows the parents more time for attention to siblings and other family duties and reduced parents more time for attention to siblings and other family duties and reduced parental absence from work and lost income" (1).
Previous studies revealed that the decision to breast feed is usually made long before conception. These findings suggest t focus on adolescents as a target group for breast feeding promotion, since they are potential mothers (8, 11, 13, and 15). This is the reason for targeting female university students in this study.
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The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of female university student in Sharjah towards breast feeding. The specific objective was to determine how much they know about specific important and relevant aspects of breast feeding. Another objective was to assess the factors that affect the decision whether to breast feed or not.
A similar study was carried out in Saudi Arabia in 1997 at the Dammam collage of girls. The aim of the study was to determine whether Saudi female collage students were prepared for successful breast feeding, and to assess their knowledge about relevant aspects of breast feeding. They found out that student with a high knowledge score were more likely to breast feed in future than those with law knowledge score. (8).
A randomize controlled trail in Canada in 2001 found out that students with previous exposure to breast feeding mothers or who were breast fed themselves or had siblings who were breast fed were more likely to intend to breast feed their children (7).
Another study was conducted in the United States in the year 2000 to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of U.S. high school girls regarding infant feeding. Girls who were breast fed were more likely to plan to breast feed (83% vs. 35%), as were girls with exposure to breast feeding (62% vs. 45%). The study concluded that teenagers are an important target group for breast feeding promotion (13).
An article published in the journal of Pediatrics in 1995 stated that "in a group of adolescent girls, more positive attitude toward and increase knowledge about breast feeding have been associated with a higher likelihood of considering breast feeding" in future (11).
A study carried out in Fujairah in UAE showed "a significant inverse
relationship with the level of general education of the mothers for
breast feeding at 6 months" post delivery (17).
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