Identification and classification of interventions that promote, protect and support breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is linked with multiple benefits for mothers, children, families and society. However, breastfeeding practice is sub-optimal, globally, and is limited by diverse barriers across the levels of human socialization. Deliberate actions are necessary to promote, protect, and support optimal breastfeeding.  In this review, we have identified and classified evidence on interventions designed to promote, protect, and support breastfeeding and lactation issues. Guided by the PEO framework, we developed and utilized a search strategy to identify citations in English indexed in Medline, Cochrane Central, CINAHL, WHO ELENA, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar. Each title and abstract of the citations retrieved were screened for relevance in COVIDENCE using a predefined inclusion criteria” by two independent reviewers. Searches were limited to studies published from January 1970 to December 2021, and including trials, as well as observational studies that described linkages between intervention strategies and breastfeeding outcomes. The search from all the databases yielded a total of 61,863 citations, and after duplicates and abstracts screening, 3036 studies were included in full text screening and classification, which is currently ongoing. Data will be extracted only from articles that met our inclusion criteria. The findings will report on the typology of interventions, the stage of mother’s life journey at which the intervention is provided, and in which ecosystem the mother receives the intervention. The findings will provide evidence to develop a living database of interventions for promoting, protecting, and supporting breastfeeding, including evidence on interventions focused on breast milk supplements. This review is a component of the ‘Best Practice Interventions Module project’