European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Breast milk is the best milk for premature, sick new-born admitted in NICU, as it has got
innumerable benefits for the growth and wellbeing of the baby. However provision of EBM
to the new-born in resource limited NICU is challenging. We aimed at increasing the
proportion of EBM given to babies admitted in NICU from base line of 20% to 50% of the
total feed on PND5 over a period of 10 weeks. We planned a QI project, analysed the root
cause associated with lesser EBM provision and various change ideas were introduced to
overcome the problems and were tested by 4 PDSA cycles viz. post natal counselling of
mothers, augmenting knowledge and skills of staff nurses in regards to manual expression of
breast milk and introduction of dedicated lactation counsellor to post natal wards. EBM
provision gradually improved from 20% to 72% and sustained above 70% over 10 months.
Thus by doing a simple QI project, EBM provision can be improved and well sustained in a
resource limited NICU.