Adolescent Mothers' Breastfeeding Social Support Needs

Nurses in the early postpartum can promote the long‐term health of adolescents and their children through the social support they offer adolescent mothers as they initiate breastfeeding. Network support appears to be essential to adolescents' breastfeeding experiences and needs to be included with informational, instrumental, emotional, and esteem/appraisal support when investigating support for this population. By integrating the five dimensions of social support into their care, nurses play an essential role in providing adolescents with the positive experiences that are so important to establishing breastfeeding.