Impact of Quality Improvement Program on Expressed Breastmilk Usage in Very Low Birth Weight Infants.

OBJECTIVE: To improve the usage of expressed breast milk in very low birth weight infants admitted in the neonatal intensive care unit of a tertiary centre in India.

METHODS: Between April 2015 and August 2016, various Plan-do-act-study cycles were conducted to test change ideas like antenatal counselling including help of brochure and video, post-natal telephonic reminders within 4-6 hours of birth, standardization of Kangaroo mother care, and non-nutritive sucking protocol. Data was analyzed using statistical process control charts.

RESULTS: 156 very low birth weight infants were delivered during the study period, of which 31 were excluded due to various reasons. Within 6 months of implementation, the proportion of very low birth weight infants who received expressed breast milk within 48 hours improved to 100% from 38.7% and this was sustained at 100% for next 8 months. The mean time of availability and volume of expressed breast milk within 48 hours, improved gradually from 73.3 h to 20.9 h and 4.7 mL to 15.8 mL, respectively. The mean proportion of expressed breast milk once infant reached a feed volume of 100 mL/kg/day also improved from 61.3% to 82.3%.

CONCLUSIONS: Quality improvement interventions showed promising results of increased expressed breast milk usage in very low birth weight infants.