CASE STUDY
Overview
Inspired by a mother’s experience of developing mastitis whilst expressing breastmilk for her premature baby, the project focuses on equity of access to appropriate equipment for expressing breastmilk
Research shows correctly measured and fitted flanges on breast pumps increase yield of breastmilk, reduce mother’s discomfort, and could reduce the risk of developing mastitis.
Currently, there is a low level of knowledge and nipple measurement is not standard practice. Trusts only stock a standard size which is far too large for the majority. Most mothers are required to buy the correct fitting flange, which disadvantages those from low-income families.
Health Innovation Wessex (HIW) has developed a training webinar for staff, a parent education video, and tools to enable correct fitting.
HIW has collated the resources developed and project learning into a free toolkit to encourage implementation, spread, and scale beyond Wessex.
Our impact
13%
Increase in pre-term infants receiving breastmilk in the UHS neonatal unit
2,249
Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme visitors have accessed the Early Breastmilk toolkit
449
views of the staff training webinar
Infant feeding lead
“I love the patient education video - the information is so clearly explained and visual. I am really excited to use this within our trust and I think it will hugely improve the outcomes for our families who use breast pumps.”
Infant feeding lead
Infant feeding lead
“I don’t dread pumping like I previously did after changing to the 15 mm flanges. I could only pump for five or six minutes before being too uncomfortable with the 21 mm flanges and needing to stop. When I pumped with the 21 mm flanges, I was able to get 5-15 ml of milk total from both breasts, but I am now pumping 40 ml of breast milk on the left side alone, comfortably and quickly.”
Infant feeding lead
Network support
Health Innovation Wessex, working with University Hospital Southampton (UHS), have:
Scalability prospect/next steps
Contacts are being made within NHS England to discuss national adoption.
The toolkit is free and available to support spread and scale of this project outside Wessex.
Impact of innovation
This project is currently being evaluated, but early data shows the percentage of pre-term infants receiving breastmilk in the UHS neonatal unit has increased by 13%.
All Wessex trusts now have their Early Breastmilk toolkits. The project and toolkit was presented at the Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme event on 11February 2025. Requests to present have been received formultiple events from within the Health Innovation Network, health visitors, and a national neonatal nutrition webinar series. From January to the end of March 2025, the virtual toolkit was accessed 2,249 times. During the same time, the staff training webinar has been viewed 449 times, and the parent information video has been viewed 339 times. Early breastmilk reduces the risk of sepsis, necrotising enterocolitis, and improves longer-term neurodevelopmental health.
Health and care system success
Initial project feedback from staff using the resources has been very positive.Benefits to the mother include less likelihood of developing mastitis.
Mothers are also less likely to need to pay for their own correctly sized flanges if they are available in hospital for them.
Economic success
What’s the economic impact?
Potential benefits are being evaluated and include:
How can we help you?
If you’d like to get in touch please
email enquiries@hiwessex.net