Breastfeeding offers the best nutritional support for newborn infants. The value of breast milk in reducing the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) among premature infants admitted to the NICU has been reported. Ireland has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the developed world, however, and pursuing quality improvement projects (QIPs) aimed at improving use of breast milk among premature infants could be challenging. Our goals were to: (1) improve breast milk exposure of extremely low birth weight infants in the NICU from 80% to 100% over a 2-year period and among very low birth weight infants from 60% to 80% during the same period; (2) reduce the incidence of NEC in our NICU to a level below that reported by other network centers in Ireland benchmarked in the Vermont Oxford Network; and (3) improve the breastfeeding culture of our unit by ensuring the sustainability of a QIP.
A QIP...
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