Providing support & care to meet the postpartum needs of mothers.
How can facilities provide more support to meet the postpartum needs of mothers and children who are anticipating discharge? Step 10 of the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, states the following:
“As a part of protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding, discharge from facilities providing maternity and newborn services should be planned for and coordinated so that parents and their infants have access to ongoing support and appropriate care,” (2).
In this post, we will review some of the guidelines from the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine to help you improve the experience and provide support to meet the postpartum needs of mothers anticipating discharge from your facility.
Guidelines to facilities from The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine
Anticipatory guidance is necessary to prepare the breastfeeding family for discharge to home, and excellent suggestions are provided by the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine’s Clinical Protocol #2 which was updated and revised in 2014. (3). The clinical guidelines include the following:
- Healthcare providers who are trained in lactation assessment and management should perform and document an assessment of breastfeeding effectiveness at least once during the eight hours prior to discharge.
- Families should be encouraged to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months by all healthcare providers.
- Families will benefit from appropriate, noncommercial educational materials on breastfeeding. Along with anticipatory guidance on all aspects of lactation to the family’s support system.
- Teach all new mothers the hand expression technique in order to alleviate engorgement, increase and maintain her milk supply, and obtain milk for infant feeding.
- Provide new families with contact information for counseling, advice, and health assessments in their community.
- Provide all new mothers with contact information for peer support to help meet their postpartum needs.
- Mothers who plan to return to outside employment or schooling should be provided with additional support information.
- Pediatric follow-up appointments should be arranged prior to discharge within 3-5 days of age.
- Additional visits for breastfeeding assessment and assistance are recommended.
- With the infant in the NICU, mothers should be encouraged to provide prolonged skin-to-skin care/kangaroo care and continue to breastfeed regularly.
Final thoughts...
Each of these clinical guidelines are expanded upon in the ABM Protocol #2 and they provide you with excellent advice for you to implement in your birthing facility to meet the postpartum needs of mothers. If you found this post informative then you may also be interested in the previous post on improving patient care to prevent birthing trauma and failure.
Stay safe and thank you for supporting, promoting, and protecting breastfeeding!
Kathy
Referrences
- WHO and UNICEF. Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative, Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_breastfeeding-ten-steps.html
- World Health Organization. Implementation Guidance. Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding in facilities providing maternity and newborn services: the revised Baby-Friendly Hospital Initative. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_breastfeeding-ten-steps.html
- Evans, A., Marinelli, K.A., Taylor, J.S., and The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. (2014). ABM Clinical Protocol #2: Guidelines for hospital discharge of the breastfeeding term newborn and mother: “The Going Home Protocol”, Revised 2014. Breastfeeding Medicine; 9(1): 3-9. NOTE: All ABM Protocols are free to download at https://www.bfmed.org/protocols, with at least 5 languages available.
