Teams are hard at work implementing change and piloting creative approaches. The featured example for this month: While feeding guidelines are recognized as an important tool in caring for very low birth weight infants, one of the teams in the initiative is piloting an infant feeding plan document with mothers of well term newborns. The aim of the document is to give a mother important information about how the staff will be supporting her in her choice, as well as create a visible indication to all providers of a mother’s intentions. Several teams in the initiative have identified that despite a mother’s indication that she will be breastfeeding her infant, staff often unwittingly provide barriers or fail to support frequent feedings and skin to skin time. This novel approach of providing anticipatory guidance (a standard practice in most settings) with a written plan signed by the mother and attached to the infant’s bassinet has the potential to increase the number of times the staff actions are in concert with the mother’s feeding choice.
