Abstract
Aim:
To identify why milk-production did stop in mothers of preterm infants.
Subjects/Method:
108 mothers were interviewed at their infants' discharge. Those mothers who did not have milk-production at the interview, were asked an open-ended question: Why did milk-production stop? The mothers who had milk-production at the discharge, were asked later by phone (prevalence and duration of lactation were included).
Inductiv analysis:
From the empirical data, the statements were analysed sentence by sentence, and similar events/incidents were labelled and grouped together, the statements were not mutually exclusive.
Results:
The analyses resulted in the generation of 5 categories and corresponding subcategories: 1) Capacity-problems (62%), a) little/reducing milk in mothers (49%) (including stress, smoking, hormon-changing; early menstruation, pregnancy and p-pills) b) weak/little sucking from the baby (13%) (including tiredness, unwillingness), 2) Infections (10%), a) bacteria and virus in mother (6%) (including mastitt, varicella), b) bacteria and virus in infant (4%) (including staphylococc-infection and flu), 3) Weaning (21%), a) initiated from the mother (12%) (based on the infant's age and teeth), b) initiated from the infant (9%) (including losing interest), 4) Separation (4%), a) mother out of home (including school, job), 5) Hospital factors (3%), a) staff (frightening doctor), b) equipment (few milk-pumps) (figure and table in English).