Ahmed receives international award for contributions to welfare of children
Azza Ahmed received Sigma Theta Tau International’s 2015 Audrey Hepburn Award for Contributions to the Health and Welfare of Children.
Ahmed, an associate professor of nursing, works to advance lactation research and promote breastfeeding among vulnerable populations. She has collaborated with local offices of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and studies the benefits of and barriers to breastfeeding.
She develops education programs, support tools, and interventions to increase breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates, especially among low-income and minority mothers.
Despite the established benefits to the baby and mother of breastfeeding, and recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization, breastfeeding continuation rates after leaving the hospital and rates of exclusively breastfeeding are below the target goal. The rates are especially low among low-income and minority mothers, Ahmed says.
Ahmed is a certified lactation consultant and worked with faculty in the Purdue Department of Computer Science to develop an interactive, web-based, breastfeeding monitoring system, LACTOR, to encourage and assist communication between mothers and lactation consultants. A study funded by the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) indicated it improved breastfeeding outcomes.
She also is collaborating with faculty in the Department of Animal Sciences and Indiana University School of Medicine/Eskinazi Health providers on a study to examine the effect of sleep quality during pregnancy on delayed onset of lactation and breastfeeding outcomes.