Effectiveness of Husbands’ Support Exclusive Breastfeeding Facebook Programme During the COVID-19 Pandemic [Letter]

Dear editor

We have read a research paper published in a column of your esteemed journal written by Thiwawan Thepha et al about “Effectiveness of Husband’s Support Exclusive Breastfeeding Facebook Programme During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in Thailand.¹ We whole heartedly appreciate an effort by the authors of the research paper who have done such a commendable job and giving interesting information encircling the role of males during the lactation period. For a female the time just after giving birth to a baby refers to a period classified as postpartum.² During COVID-19, it was noticed that mothers were dealing with postpartum depression and anxiety. In today’s scenario “Maternal health” after delivery is still a particular concern in low-income countries, this is a challenge for the working partners, family members and associated health workers to continue to improve their state of health when their body is struggling to get back to normal or to accept the new challenges in life to provide a fruitful environment to a newborn without compromising the nutrition of mother and newborn. During COVID-19, by participating in training to indulge in spreading knowledge about Exclusive Breastfeeding Programme to husband was something beyond good.³

The study conducetd by Thiwawan Thepha et al puts emphasis on the role of husbands increasing the rate of Breastfeeding during COVID-19 Pandemic where skin to skin interaction between mother and a newborn was massively reduced. The initiative to understand the importance of spreading information via “disease free” or “non-communicable” modes via telepathy, telemedia, and social media like Facebook took a new level of communication to support mothers to improve duration of Breastfeeding by judging knowledge, attitude, and behaviour towards Exclusive Breastfeeding Programme.¹

To discuss about the reliability of the Results on Exclusive Breastfeeding Programme would have been more reliable when the duration between test-retest would have been at a interval of 72 hours to 2 weeks. Also, ethically the control group should get the knowledge and support of Exclusive Breastfeed Programme after the analysis of the results which would have supported more mothers dealing with postpartum during COVID-19.⁴

To conclude, the results show much improvement statistically in Experimental Group which would have been continued to spread knowledge about the behaviour of husband towards his wife during lactation period. The authors have done exceptional job by making the use of social media as a boom in COVID-19. The work is much appreciated.