Supporting Premature Infant Feeding at Home V1

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Supporting Premature Infant Feeding at Home: Exploring Post-Discharge Feeding Journeys of Parents with Premature Infants and Co-Creating a supportive Resource

• IRAS ID

  329572

• Contact name

  Sonja Jacobs

• Contact email

  sonja.jacobs@nhs.net

• Sponsor organisation

  Barts Health NHS Trust - Joint research management office

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 6 months, 30 days

• Research summary

  Aim: The aim of this research is to understand the experiences of parents when breast and bottle feeding their premature baby after leaving hospital. These are babies who are born before 37 weeks of pregnancy. A feeding resource to help parents when feeding their baby after leaving hospital will be developed from this work.

  Background: Nearly 600,000 babies are born prematurely every year in England. The parents of approximately 40% of premature babies report ongoing feeding difficulties by the time their child reaches their 4th birthday. These feeding difficulties often develop because of a variety of reasons including the medical care needed after birth like breathing and feeding tubes, babies having difficulties learning how to suck, babies not able to be held, and parental anxiety and stress. Parents report that discharge can be stressful with a lack of support with feeding once they are home.
  There is limited research about feeding support once babies are home.

  For these reasons, parents of premature babies may benefit from a resource that can help them with feeding once they are home. This research project aims to listen to what parents feel is important and use this information to develop a resource with parents of premature babies.
  
  Funding and methods: This study will last 3 years and is funded by the NIHR as part of a Clinical Doctoral Fellowship. It will involve interviews with parents of premature babies in the first six months after discharge to learn about their experiences of feeding their babies. This will be followed by co-design workshops to develop a feeding resource with the help of parents of premature babies and other stakeholder. The final stage of the study will ask parents of premature babies to use the resource prototype and give feedback about the usefulness of the resource.
  

• REC name

  South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  25/SC/0085

• Date of REC Opinion

  2 May 2025

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion