Supporting Public Health Nurses with Breastfeeding Interventions for Late Preterm Infants

Abstract

Late preterm infants often experience feeding difficulty post discharge from hospital. While breast milk is especially important for late preterm infants, they have lower exclusive breastfeeding rates than full term infants. This is because mothers of late preterm infants often do not receive sufficient amount of breastfeeding support in the postpartum period. Furthermore, in the Canadian context, guidelines do not exist for health care providers to use to assist them in providing breastfeeding support for mothers of late preterm infants in the community setting. We used a modified Delphi approach to begin to fill this gap. We present information relating to physiological development in systems, its significance to feeding, and potential interventions for public health nurses. This information will assist PHNs in their clinical reasoning and decision-making when supporting mothers and their LPIs to exclusively breastfeed in the community.