BackgroundChinese mothers of preterm infants often face obstacles to breastfeeding and commonly experience prolonged maternal-infant separation when their high-risk infants are hospitalized in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This separation hinders mother-infant attachment and the establishment of breastfeeding. Currently, little is known about Chinese mothers’ experiences breastfeeding their preterm infants, or their support needs. The aim of this study was to develop an understanding of mothers’ experiences breastfeeding a hospitalized preterm infant and the support needed to establish a milk supply during the period separation from their infants.MethodsA qualitative descriptive study was conducted in Beijing in 2017. A total of 11 Chinese mothers were individually interviewed while separated from their infants. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. A thematic analysis involving a seven-step protocol identified key themes.ResultsMothers of preterm infants reported physically and mentally challenging breastfeeding experiences during the period they were separated from their babies. They viewed expressing breast milk as integral to their maternal role, even though some found expressing breastmilk exhausting. With little professional support available, the mothers depended upon nonprofessionals to establish breastfeeding.ConclusionsThe study identified the difficulties mothers experienced establishing a milk supply while separated from their preterm infants, and the importance of access to health professional support.
Patient safety is a priority in health service delivery, and nurses play a critical role in every stage of direct patient care and adverse incident minimization (WHO, World Health Organization, 2019). The primary nursing-related threats to patient safety are errors of commission and missed nursing care (MNC)-an omission error (Kalisch & Xie, 2014): the former may result in medical errors or malpractice, while the latter is often rationalized and, consequently, left unresolved (Jones, Hamilton, & Murry, 2015). Globally, numerous countries have developed national reporting systems for adverse incidents, following the WHO guidelines
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.