Breastmilk Provision for Preterm and Sick Neonates

Having a baby born early or ill can be one of the most upsetting and stressful events in a mother’s life and this makes it harder to express milk.

This learning resource equips midwives and nurses with the skills and knowledge to support mothers and improve breastmilk provision rates at discharge from neonatal units.

This project is a collaboration between NHS England, the Thames Valley and Wessex Neonatal Operational Delivery Network, Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, University Southampton Hospitals and Oxford University Hospitals.

Course Features

The content is arranged into four key topics:

• Before expressing – what the healthcare professional should know and help the mother to understand before she starts expressing breastmilk.
• Starting to express – how to support a mother practically and emotionally as she begins to express.
• Increasing production – how to support mothers to maintain and increase their breastmilk supply.
• Job aids – access to useful aids and reference tools.

Course Content

Breastmilk is the best first food for any baby and is particularly important for those born preterm or sick. Having a baby born early or ill is one of the most upsetting and stressful events in a mother’s life and this makes it harder to express milk. This course will help key relevant staff in the support of breastmilk provision for preterm and sick term infants.  The content is suitable for all professionals who support and work/contribute to improving breastmilk provision:

• neonatal nurses, nursery nurses, nursing associates, neonatal health care support workers and paediatric staff
• midwives, health visitors and maternity healthcare support workers
• medical trainees
• medical staff

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eIntegrity programmes are developed by NHS Health Education England’s e-Learning for Healthcare programme (HEE e-LfH). 

The programmes are high quality self-directed learning programmes.  They are designed to support training and CPD and are excellent resources alongside other traditional teaching methodologies.  They have been developed by the UK NHS for use in the NHS.  However, many of the programmes have international relevance, particularly the specialty training programmes which are often mapped to UK specialty training curricula.

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