Objective: Breast-feeding counselling has been identified as the intervention with
the greatest potential for reducing child deaths, but there is little experience in
delivering breast-feeding counselling at scale within routine health systems. The
study aim was to compare rates of exclusive breast-feeding associated with a
breast-feeding counselling intervention in which community health agents (CHA)
received 20 h of training directed at counselling and practical skills with rates
pre-intervention when CHA received 4 h of didactic teaching.
Design: Cross-sectional surveys of breast-feeding practices were conducted
pre- and post-intervention in random samples of 1266 and 1245 infants aged
0–5?9 months, respectively.
Setting: Recife, Brazil, with a population of 2 million.
Subjects: CHA (n 1449) of Brazil’s Family Health Programme were trained to
provide breast-feeding counselling at home visits.