Hospitals are encouraged to step up evidence-based practices with various initiatives such as The Joint Commission Perinatal Core Measures and Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative both recognizing the protection and value of mom’s own milk (M.O.M).  The use of human donor milk in NICU has been expensive but worth the payoff with less VLBW morbidity and mortality in our large NICU.  The purpose of the M.O.M. Bundle is a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach to gently encourage and support mom’s decision to provide her precious mother’s milk for her baby in the NICU.

Proposed change:

The M.O.M. Bundle uses quality initiatives throughout the Women and Children’s Service line to initiate and maintain mom’s milk supply. Improvements are focused on the barriers moms face when providing milk and discovering an innovated game plan to decrease those barriers.  

Implementation, outcomes and evaluation:

Implementation of this quality initiative focuses on staff and family education.  After looking at the average length of stay, baseline breastfeeding rates, number of donor milk bottles used each day and fiscal expenditures spent on donor milk, our goal is projected to decrease donor milk use, decrease medical and surgical NEC rates and decrease length of stay. 

Implications for nursing practice:

The M.O.M. Bundle is a collaborative approach to increase the availability and volume of mother’s milk in our Level III, 83 Bed NICU. Working together with our medical, nursing and NICU support staff, we project an increase in M.O.M. benefiting both mom/baby and hospital goals.

Keywords:

Breast milk, NICU, quality initiatives, collaborative, increasing, milk supply