अमूर्त

Supplementry Suckling Technique: Relactation Tool for Mothers Not Breastfeeding Their Infants.

Om Shankar chaurasiya* , kawalpreet chhabra

Introduction: Exclusive breast feeding is advised by WHO upto 4 months of infancy and if possible up to 6 months of age. However breast feeding is many a times stopped or given along with other milk supplements, leading to increase in malnutrition , morbidity and mortality in infants less than 6 months age. Supplementary suckling technique (SST) is one of the recommended method of establishing lactation in mothers who are nonlactating or have stopped lactating after discontinuing breast feed. Objective: To evaluate the success of supplementary suckling technique in restoring lactation in mothers with infants less than 6 months of age. Material and Method: The study was conducted over a period of 12 months in pediatric department of a tertiary care hospital. Mothers of infants <6 months, not exclusively breast feeding their infants who were admitted with different ailments were included in this study. Complete data was collected in a predefined format including anthropometry and feeding details. Establishment of breast feeding and weight gain with help of SST was considered as success. Results:74 infants , less than 6 months of age, who were not being exclusively breast fed were admitted amongst whom SST was tried in 59, with male female ratio of 2.4 :1. Maximum patients were < 1 months of age [30 (51 %)] and average hospital stay was 6.74 days (5 – 18). Lactation was successfully established in 52(86.4%) and failed in 8 (13.5 %) with average weight gain of 12.57 gm. / kg/day (0.8 – 44.3). Conclusion: Supplementary suckling technique has a good success rate when implemented by dedicated staff members in motivated mothers.