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A study on baby care revealed that many new mothers don't get appropriate advice on breastfeeding practices, pacifier use and immunization from the physicians. In some cases, the parents of the new-born receive advice from family members as well as from medical professionals that contradict with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations.

In the study funded by the National Institutes of Health, the researchers surveyed about 1000 mothers from the US with children aged between two and eight months. The mothers were questioned on various topics including breastfeeding practices, baby sleep position, baby sleep location, vaccination and use of pacifiers, according to Philly.

The study showed that about 20 percent of mothers reported that they received no advice on the sleeping position or breast feeding of the infants from their health care providers. The AAP recommends that babiees should be placed on their backs to cut down the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), reported Medical Daily.

More than 15 percent of advices given by the physicians on breast-feeding and use of pacifiers didn't seem to match with the AAP recommendations. On the other hand, 29 percent of mothers got wrong information on the infant sleep location and 26 percent of advices given on infant sleep positions contradicted the recommendations.

"As a physician, these findings made me stop and really think about how we communicate important information to new parents," said Dr Staci R. Eisenberg, the study's first author and a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center, noted NIH.

"We may need to be clearer and more specific in telling new mothers about safe sleep recommendations. From a public health perspective, there is a real opportunity to engage families and the media to promote infant health," added Eisenberg.

Nearly 32 percent of mothers reported that advices from their family members regarding baby sleep positions that were inappropriate according to the AAP the recommendations. And 51 percent of them were asked to put the babies to sleep on their stomach which is linked with increased risk of SIDS. These factors emphasize the importance of the role of health care providers in giving appropriate advice to new mothers more importantly as per recommendations.