Effectiveness of Planned Teaching Programme on Working Mothers Regarding Domiciliary Management of Expressed Breastmilk and its Storage in Bengaluru, India

Breastmilk is the liquid gold for the baby. Lancet series of studies has emphasized on advantages of exclusive breastfeeding both for mother and baby. United Nation report reveals that India accounts for 57 million of the world's 146 million malnourished children and the report suggests that malnutrition can be reduced by ensuring that newborn are given colostrums, infants are exclusively breastfed for six months and adequate complementary foods are given three to five times a day.¹ The purpose of this study was to deliver a planned teaching program thereby increasing working mother's knowledge regarding Expression and storage of breastmilk to maintain exclusive breastfeeding for six months.

Pre-experimental one group pretest posest design approach was used to assess the effectiveness of planned teaching programme on knowledge of working mothers regarding domiciliary management of expressed breastmilk and its storage in postnatal ward of St. Philomena's hospital, Bengaluru. In view of the nature of the problem and objectives of the study a structured interview schedule and planned teaching programme was developed focusing on the domiciliary management of expressed breastmilk and its storage. Validity was ensured in consultation with guides and experts in the field of nursing, medicine and statistics. Reliability of the tool was tested by test retest method and found to be highly reliable with a score of 0.89.

The study was carried out in postnatal ward of St. Philomena's hospital, Viveknagar, Bengaluru. 60 working mothers were selected by non probability purposive sampling technique. Structured interview schedule was used to collect needed data followed by that Planned teaching Programme on domiciliary management of expressed breastmilk and its storage was administered on the same day. Posest was administered after seven days. The data collected were tabulated and analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Majority of the working mothers 76.7% (46) were in the age group of 20–30 years and 81.7% (49) of them were geing one month of maternity leave. 83.3% of working mothers were having inadequate knowledge regarding domiciliary management of expressed breastmilk and its storage before PTP and 98.3% (59) were having adequate knowledge after PTP. The mean difference of overall knowledge of working mothers before and after PTP was 16.97 with a mean % 48.5 with a SD of 3.10. The paired t value calculated 42.35 was significant at p<0.05. There was a significant association of knowledge of working mothers before PTP with demographic variables such as age and duration of maternity leave.

Based on the above findings of the study it concludes that the Planned teaching programme was effective in improving the knowledge of working mothers regarding domiciliary management of expressed breastmilk and its storage.