Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, University Children's Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden.
Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, 751 85, Sweden.
Int Breastfeed J. 2024 Aug 31;19(1):60. doi: 10.1186/s13006-024-00668-3.
Infants requiring neonatal care often face initial breastfeeding challenges, leading them to receive expressed breast milk from their mother or donor milk. While emphasizing the mother's own milk as the gold standard for infant nutrition, the utilization of donor milk stands as the preferred alternative over infant formula due to its numerous benefits. To facilitate the provision of donor milk to preterm and ill infants in neonatal units, the active participation of women willing to contribute their breast milk is crucial. This study aims to enhance the understanding of women's experiences in the donation process, thereby contributing to efforts aiming at alleviating the shortage of donated breast milk by improve the care and support for breast milk donors.
This descriptive qualitative study took an inductive approach based on individual semi-structured interviews conducted during 2021 with 15 breast milk donors in Sweden. The data were analysed with thematic analysis.
Two themes were identified in the analysis: motivation to donate and challenges to overcome. Many of the women struggled to overcome the apparent challenges of not only starting the process of donating breast milk but also maintaining it. Despite the strain, they were motivated to donate their breast milk and seeking information by themselves to do something important for someone else. Only a few of the women talked about the financial benefits of donating breast milk; donating seemed to be mostly based on altruistic reasons.
Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19 restrictions, time consumption, and the hard work of sterilizing pump utensils, women continued to donate their milk driven by altruism. To enhance donor support and increase milk donation, several improvements are suggested: providing comprehensive information and resources, simplifying the donation process, offering flexible scheduling, and recognizing donors' contributions.
需要新生儿护理的婴儿通常面临最初的母乳喂养挑战，导致他们接受来自母亲或捐赠者的母乳。虽然强调母亲自己的奶是婴儿营养的黄金标准，但由于捐赠奶有许多好处，因此优先选择使用捐赠奶而不是婴儿配方奶粉。为了在新生儿病房为早产儿和患病婴儿提供捐赠奶，愿意捐献母乳的妇女的积极参与至关重要。本研究旨在增进对妇女在捐赠过程中经验的理解，从而通过改善对母乳捐赠者的护理和支持来缓解捐赠母乳短缺的问题。
这是一项描述性定性研究，采用了基于 2021 年在瑞典进行的 15 名母乳捐赠者的个人半结构化访谈的归纳方法。使用主题分析对数据进行分析。
分析确定了两个主题：捐赠动机和克服的挑战。许多妇女不仅在开始捐赠母乳的过程中，而且在维持过程中都努力克服明显的挑战。尽管存在压力，但她们还是有动力通过自己寻找信息来为他人做一些重要的事情而捐赠母乳。只有少数妇女谈到了捐赠母乳的经济利益；捐赠似乎主要基于利他主义的原因。
尽管受到 COVID-19 限制、时间消耗和消毒泵器具的辛苦工作的挑战，妇女们还是出于利他主义继续捐赠母乳。为了加强捐赠者支持并增加母乳捐赠，建议进行以下改进：提供全面的信息和资源、简化捐赠过程、提供灵活的时间表以及认可捐赠者的贡献。
