Becoming a mother - Mothers' experience of Kangaroo Mother Care.

Objective: To describe mothers' experiences of providing their preterm infants with Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC).

Study Design: A qualitative descriptive design.

Setting: Two level III neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in Sweden.

Early skin-to-skin contact between healthy late preterm infants and their parents: an observational cohort study.

Background: Skin-to-skin contact (SSC) is an important factor to consider in the care of late preterm infants (born between 34 0/7 and 36 6/7 completed weeks of gestation). The literature suggests that SSC between preterm infants and their mothers facilitates breastfeeding. However, more studies are needed to explore potential dose-response effects between SSC and breastfeeding as well as studies that explicitly investigate SSC by fathers among late preterm infants.

Parents need support to find ways to optimise their own sleep without seeing their preterm infant's sleeping patterns as a problem.

Aim: This study described how parents perceived their own sleep, and their infants', during neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission and after discharge. It also explored the infants' sleeping location at home.

Methods: The study was conducted in the NICUs of two Swedish university hospitals.

Breastfeeding Patterns in Preterm Infants Born at 28-33 Gestational Weeks.

Background: Studies of breastfeeding patterns during preterm infants' first year of life are scarce but are important for providing breastfeeding mothers of preterm infants with optimal support.

Objective: This study aimed to describe breastfeeding patterns in preterm infants up to 1 year of corrected age.

Methods: As part of a larger study on kangaroo mother care in Sweden, a 24-hour breastfeeding diary was sent home after discharge from hospital, and at 2, 6, and 12 months of the infant's corrected age.

Healthy late preterm infants and supplementary artificial milk feeds: effects on breast feeding and associated clinical parameters.

Objectives: to compare the influence of supplementary artificial milk feeds on breast feeding and certain clinical parameters among healthy late preterm infants given regular supplementary artificial milk feeds versus being exclusively breast fed from birth.

Design: a comparative study using quantitative methods. Data were collected via a parental diary and medical records.

The Swedish Version of the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form: Reliability and Validity Assessment.

Background: Among Swedish mothers, breastfeeding duration has been declining in recent years. An instrument for early identification of women at risk for shorter breastfeeding duration may be useful in reversing this trend.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to translate and psychometrically test the Swedish version of the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (BSES-SF), examine the relationship between breastfeeding self-efficacy and demographic variables, and evaluate associations with breastfeeding continuation plans in Swedish mothers.

Expansion of the baby-friendly hospital initiative ten steps to successful breastfeeding into neonatal intensive care: expert group recommendations.

In the World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund document Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: Revised, Updated and Expanded for Integrated Care, neonatal care is mentioned as 1 area that would benefit from expansion of the original Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. The different situations faced by preterm and sick infants and their mothers, compared to healthy infants and their mothers, necessitate a specific breastfeeding policy for neonatal intensive care and require that health care professionals have knowledge and skills in lactation and breastfeeding support, including provision of antenatal information, that are specific to neonatal care. Facilitation of early, continuous, and prolonged skin-to-skin contact (kangaroo mother care), early initiation of breastfeeding, and mothers' access to breastfeeding support during the infants' whole hospital stay are important.

Initiation and extent of skin-to-skin care at two Swedish neonatal intensive care units.

Aim: To describe initiation and extent of parents' application of skin-to-skin care (SSC) with their preterm infants at two Swedish neonatal intensive care units.

Methods: The duration of SSC was recorded in 104 infants' medical charts during their hospital stay, and the parents answered a questionnaire.

Results: Both parents were involved in the practice of SSC.

Provision of Kangaroo Mother Care: supportive factors and barriers perceived by parents.

Background: Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) supports parents' role at the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). To enhance parents' provision of KMC, it is essential to obtain knowledge of what parents perceive as supportive factors and barriers regarding their opportunities to perform KMC.

Aim: To identify factors that parents of preterm infants perceived as supportive factors or barriers for their performance of KMC and to explore the timing of and reasons for parents' discontinuation of KMC.

Expansion of the ten steps to successful breastfeeding into neonatal intensive care: expert group recommendations for three guiding principles.

The World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: Revised, Updated, and Expanded for Integrated Care (2009) identifies the need for expanding the guidelines originally developed for maternity units to include neonatal intensive care. For this purpose, an expert group from the Nordic countries and Quebec, Canada, prepared a draft proposal, which was discussed at an international workshop in Uppsala, Sweden, in September 2011. The expert group suggests the addition of 3 "Guiding Principles" to the Ten Steps to support this vulnerable population of mothers and infants: 1.

Kangaroo Mother Care helps fathers of preterm infants gain confidence in the paternal role.

Aim: This article is a report on a descriptive study of fathers’ experiences of providing their preterm infants with Kangaroo Mother Care.

Background: During neonatal intensive care, fathers describe the incubator as a barrier and the separation from their infant as stressful. Fathers consider it important to be close to the infant, and performing Kangaroo Mother Care makes them feel an important participant in their infants' care.

Swedish mothers' experience of continuous Kangaroo Mother Care.

Aims: To characterise the first infants receiving continuous Kangaroo Mother Care from birth to discharge in a Swedish neonatal intensive care unit and to investigate their mothers' experiences of this model of care.

Background: Admission of a newborn infant to a neonatal intensive care unit commonly implies separation of the new mother from her infant. Kangaroo Mother Care is a model of neonatal care which supports the parental role as primary care-giver and contributes to minimising the separation between the infant and parents.

Influence of test weighing before/after nursing on breastfeeding in preterm infants.

Purpose: Swedish hospitals apply various regimens for preterm infants' nutrition in connection with their mothers' establishment of breastfeeding. Milk intake is assessed either by test weighing before and after breastfeeding or by observing the infant's suckling behavior (ie, clinical indices). These differing policies may lead to differences in infants' feeding progress.

Motor performance in very preterm infants before and after implementation of the newborn individualized developmental care and assessment programme in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Aim: To compare motor performance in supine position at the age of 4-months corrected age (CA) in very preterm (VPT) infants cared for in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) before and after the implementation of the Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP).

Methods: Assessments of motor performance in supine position according to level of motor development and quality of motor performance were made, using the Structured Observation of Motor Performance in Infants (SOMP-I).

Subjects: VPT infants cared for in a NICU at a Swedish university hospital before, Group A (n = 68), and after, Group B (n = 58), the implementation of developmentally supportive care based on NIDCAP.

Parents as their infant's primary caregivers in a neonatal intensive care unit.

The aim was to explore parents' and professionals' opinions about parental performance of care in a neonatal intensive care unit. Forty-three parents and 85 nurses completed questionnaires composed of a list of 95 caregiving activities; 14 nurses and 4 neonatologists participated in four focus group interviews. Considerable differences appeared in parents' and nurses' responses about parents' participation in their infants' care.

Application of the baby friendly hospital initiative to neonatal care: suggestions by Swedish mothers of very preterm infants.

The aim of this study was to obtain suggestions from mothers of very preterm infants regarding modification of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. Thirteen mothers were interviewed 2 to 6 months after their infants' discharge from the hospital. The interviews generated 13 steps, which partly agree with the BFHI steps.

Effects of socioeconomic status on breastfeeding duration in mothers of preterm and term infants.

Background: The propensity to breastfeed is not only of importance with regard to the beneficial effects on the individual, but is also of concern as an indicator of health behaviour related to social conditions. Thus, our aim was to investigate the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on breastfeeding duration in mothers of preterm and term infants.

Methods: Prospective population based cohort study.