NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Expectant mothers who receive prenatal counseling and education on breast feeding are more likely to nurse their babies, a new study from Singapore shows.

"Health care workers should make every effort to have one face-to-face encounter to discuss breastfeeding with expectant mothers before they deliver," Dr. Yap-Seng Chong of the National University of Singapore and colleagues conclude.

While the World Health Organization recommends that mothers breastfeed their infants exclusively for the first six months of life, Chong and colleagues note in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, rates of breastfeeding in developed nations frequently fall short of this goal. In Singapore, they write, just 21 percent of mothers were still breastfeeding their infants at six months, while 27 percent of US moms were.

To test the effectiveness of prenatal training in promoting breastfeeding, the researchers randomly assigned 401 pregnant women to receive counseling and educational material, educational material only, or regular care only.

Mothers given counseling were 2.6 times more likely than the mothers who received routine care only to be breastfeeding their infants exclusively or predominantly at three months and 2.4 times more likely to be doing so at six months, the researchers found.

And at six months, the researchers found, the women who had received counseling were 2.5 times more likely to be exclusively or predominantly breastfeeding their infants than those who had received educational material only.

"Providing printed information on breastfeeding alone before delivery was not as effective as personalized antenatal counseling at enhancing exclusive or predominant breastfeeding rates," the researchers write.

They urge that education and counseling on breastfeeding be incorporated into routine pregnancy care.