Maintenance of lactation: a challenge for hospitalized premature infant’s mothers.

Abstract

Preterm birth is a difficult situation for all family members, interfering with the establishment of parental bonding and attachment with the baby. This paper is a qualitative and collective case study, carried out with the purpose of identifying the perception of mothers concerning the maintenance of lactation during the hospital stay of premature infants at Hospital de CIínicas de Porto Alegre (Clinic Hospital of Porto Alegre), Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The data were collected from March to April/2006 through interviews and observations and resulted in four categories. This article focuses only on the categories that refer to the mechanisms used by mothers to maintain lactation during hospitalization: beliefs and attitudes related to maintenance of lactation and breast milk expression at the human milk bank. The maintenance of lactation constitutes a complex process to be learnt by mothers involved with their infant’s prematurity and hospitalization