| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北護理健康大學 === 護理研究所 === 102 === Successful breastfeeding is one of the most important tasks for mothers during early postpartum phase. Newborn’s inability to suck effectively not only affect mother’s confidence toward breastfeeding but also contribute to early termination of breastfeeding among mothers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of oral stimulation intervention on improvement of sucking ability among newborns with sucking difficulty and mother’s self-efficacy toward breastfeeding.
This quasi-experimental study recruited healthy full-term newborns who were born through vaginal delivery, and mothers from the nursery room of a medical center in northern Taiwan. Each newborn was assessed during the second day after birth using Infant Breastfeeding Assessment Tool (IBFAT). One hundred and fifty pairs were identified as having ineffective sucking pattern. Overall 22 pairs of cases were lost. The researcher recruited 64 pairs for the control group, then recruited 64 pairs for the experimental group. Newborns in the control group received routine management, whereas newborns in the experimental group received the oral stimulation intervention. Prior to breastfeeding, newborns from the experimental group received oral stimulation exercise for 5 minutes once per day until returning home (fourth day after birth). On the second day, third day, fourth day, one week and two weeks after birth, newborn’s sucking behaviors were assessed. In addition, the mother’s self-efficacy toward breastfeeding was assessed based on Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale–short form (BSES-SF).
Generalized Estimation Equation (GEE) was used to analyze newborn’s sucking ability, mother’s self-efficacy toward breastfeeding, newborn’s weight loss after receiving the oral stimulation exercise at different times between experiment and control groups. The results showed a significant difference on the interaction of group by time（p ＜ .001): (1) the experiment group had a significant higher total score on the sucking ability of the newborn with difficulty sucking than the control group at different times, (2) the experiment group had a significant higher total score on self-efficacy toward breastfeeding than the control group at different times, and (3) the experiment group had a significantly less daily newborn weight loss than the control group at different times. In addition, the results of Pearson’s Correlation showed a high positive correlation (p ＜ .001) between “sucking ability among the newborns with difficulty sucking” and “self-efficacy toward breastfeeding” with the correlation coefficients ranged between .742 and .953. The findings also indicated that the pattern of breastfeeding started to change at the third day after child birth. The pattern of strict breastfeeding in the experiment group was significantly higher than the control group（p ＜ .001).
Practitioners are recommended to carefully assess such patterns among healthy full-term newborns. Oral stimulation exercise should be provided as appropriate to improve the sucking ability among newborn and mother’s self-efficacy toward breastfeeding. The results of this study provide practitioners essential information as they advocate for breastfeeding and improve the effectiveness of breastfeeding.
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