1393 THE EFFECTS OF MATERNAL COUNSELLING ON BREASTFEEDING PATTERNS OF HIGH RISK NEONATES

Abstract

Breast milk has been recommended for feeding high risk neonates due to the psychological, nutritional and immunological advantages of breastfeeding (BF). In order to assess the influence of maternal counselling, we studied the BF pattern of 503 mothers of infants admitted to the neonatal ICU for 2 periods of 6 months prior to and following initiation of counselling. A special group of certified counsellors, who successfully breastfed their own sick neonates, were available by phone to all mothers. With counselling there was a significant increase in the number of mothers who engaged in BF (32/242=13.2% to 92/261=34.8%, p<0.001) and significant decrease in the number of mothers who stopped BF during infant's hospitalization (9/23=39.3% to 8/94=8.5%) (p < 0.001). Duration of BF after hospital discharge was similar pre and post counselling (mean ± SEM 9.8 ± 5.4 vs. 10.1 ± 6.5 months) (NS), and higher than national rates of BF reported for full term infants. Demographic data were comparable for both study groups and showed that BF mothers were predominantly white (95 and 93%), privately insured (87.5 and 78%) and in the age range of 20 to 30 years (98 and 92.5%). The results of this study demonstrate that special counselling can effectively increase the rate of BF among mothers of high risk neonates and that special efforts in counselling mothers of younger ages and lower social economic groups is presently needed.