Breast milk feeding is the best option for feeding infants and exclusive breast milk feeding is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics for the first six months of life.  In addition, The Joint Commission (JC) recently introduced PC-05recommending exclusive breast milk feeding during an infant’s entire hospital stay. Our goal was to increase the rates of breast milk feeding during the duration of the hospital stay and the rates of infants feed exclusively breast milk at discharge in order to promote what is best for infants and comply with the JC’s recommendation.

Proposed change:

Our plan was to increase the support and duration of exclusive breast milk feeding by placing infants skin to skin during the immediate post delivery period. Secondly, we planned to begin encouraging early pumping for mothers of infants that were not breastfeeding well or were unable to nurse.  We then planned to make the access of breast pumps and supplies more readily available for our patients.  Our staff would then be educated on the changes.

Implementation, outcomes and evaluation:

Our unit began implementing changes to support the breastfeeding relationship in the above mentioned areas. We began placing all breastfeeding infants skin to skin within the first hour and allowing them to self-attach to the breast for the first feeding which has been shown to increase the success of breastfeeding by around 80%. Secondly we began to encourage early pumping for infants that were not feeding well at the breast or were unable to be at the breast due to medical conditions.

 We then looked at how we could support the use of breast pumps for our patient population.  This was accomplished by partnering with Walgreen’s Pharmacy in BRMC to provide easy rental of breast pumps as well as breastfeeding supplies at competitive prices. Finally we educated our nursing staff on the importance of supporting breastfeeding, allowing them to become breastfeeding advocates for our patients.

Implications for nursing practice:

By implementing these changes we were able to provide the early intervention and support necessary for our patient population.  Patients are excited about the skin to skin process and our early support and intervention. Our partnership with Walgreen’s has allowed our patients easy access to breast pump rentals and supplies. Combining these interventions has a great potential to increase the rates of exclusive breast milk feeding during the hospital stay and beyond.

 Keywords:

skin to skin, early pumping, exclusive breast milk feeding, easy access for rental supplies