Breast milk expression practice and factors affecting it among mothers of preterm and low birth weight neonates admitted to neonatal intensive care unit of government hospitals in Addis Ababa,Ethiopia.
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Date
2020-07
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Background: World Health Organization recommends that breastfeeding should start within the
first hour of birth in term and within the first six hours for preterm by expressing breast milk. In
early preterm and very low birth weight breast milk expression is an optimal solution to continue
with breastfeeding.
Objective: The aim this study was to assess breast milk expression practices and factors
affecting it among mothers of preterm and low birth weight infants in NICUs of government
hospitals in Addis Ababa.
Methods and materials: Facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted on a total of 124
mothers who were in NICU selected sequentially. Pretested structured questionnaire was used to
collect data and the collected data were coded, entered, and cleaned using Epidata version 4.6.0.2
then exported to SPSS version 26 for analysis. Odds ratios along with 95%CI were estimated to
identify factors affecting breast milk expression practice using logistic regression analysis. Level
of statistical significance was declared at p-value ≤ 0.05.
Results: The magnitude of late initiation of breast expression, inadequate frequency and
inadequate volume were 100%, 40.3% and 33.9% respectively. Getting instruction on method of
their choice (AOR=0.55; CI=0.31 to 0.96) and gestational age ≤32 weeks (AOR=2.39; CI=1.34
to 4.24) were factors significantly associated with initiation milk expression. Stable health status
of baby (AOR=0.11; CI=0.01 to 0.83), fair (subcritical) health status of baby (AOR=0.07;
CI=0.01 to 0.55), were facilitators of adequate amount of milk; and worry about volume milk
(AOR=7.50; CI=3.32 to 16.95) and worry about health status of baby (AOR=4.63; CI=2.21 to
9.70) were significantly affect the volume of expressed breast milk.
Conclusions: The present study indicated practice of early initiation of milk expression was
poor. In order to promote good practice breast milk expression among mothers of preterm and
low birth weight inter-departmental collaboration is required.
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Keywords
Breast milk expression, preterm, low birth weight, NICU