Hamad Medical Corporation

Mothers and babies reaping the rewards of breastfeeding education at Hamad Medical Corporation

Early initiation of breastfeeding, within an hour of birth, can help reduce newborn mortality. It does this by protecting the child from acquiring infections, which is why WHO and UNICEF recommend instigating breastfeeding within an hour of birth and continuing it exclusively for the first six months.

Introducing complementary foods until the child is two can also help lower morbidity and mortality, reduce the risk of chronic diseases later in life, and foster better overall development.

With these benefits in mind, Qatar’s Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) was keen to promote breastfeeding to new mothers.

Challenges

The project began in June 2014, with clinicians made aware of how important and beneficial breastfeeding can be. Once a baseline measurement had been taken, a workshop was carried out to increase awareness among staff about the importance of exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of age.

However, despite being taught about the benefits, nurses were inconsistent with their application of the recommendations, while they also lacked the skills required to assist mothers.

Mothers themselves were also less than willing to breastfeed exclusively, as they didn’t have sufficient knowledge about how much of a positive step it would be for their newborns.

Fixing the issues

From October 2014, staff at HMC’s Women’s Hospital began discussing breastfeeding within half an hour of mothers arriving at the unit.

The clinicians talked them through the timelines involved in breastfeeding, while a pair of nurses were assigned to each mother to assist them with breastfeeding on a regular basis.

The following month, once clinicians began using Cerner PowerChart Maternity®, monitoring and recording became much easier. All the information about mothers and newborns could now be kept in one place and staff would be able to receive prompts about feeding times and providing education.

There has been an appreciable improvement in attitudes towards breastfeeding since HMC’s Women’s Hospital implemented its project and began using PowerChart Maternity.

The headline figure shows that breastfeeding figures have reached as high as 92 percent in the facility, compared to 51 percent in June 2014, when the project’s baseline was established.

In the high dependency unit, the figure has hit 95 percent of all babies.

There has also been an increase in the number of newborns being exclusively breast fed, as opposed to bottle feeding over that time as well, as more mothers receive education.

The measurement of this has been easy to calculate, as all the relevant data is captured on the EHR as a matter of course. The Cerner solution also helps nurses to achieve their quality improvement targets by providing them with relevant prompts.