Father’s role in supporting breastfeeding of preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit: a qualitative study

OBJECTIVE: To analyse the social beliefs, representations and experiences of fathers of preterm newborns (NBs) regarding breastfeeding. DESIGN: A qualitative interview study with analysis of transcripts using the Alceste software. SETTING: A tertiary university hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in France. PARTICIPANTS: 20 fathers of preterm NBs hospitalised in an NICU. RESULTS: The software classified 72% of the corpus into six lexical classes. Two main networks of classes emerged from the analysis: one for lactation, consisted of ‘breastfeeding’ and ‘expression of milk’ classes, and one for ‘care’. The analysis demonstrated that fathers were sensitive to arguments related to the health benefits of human milk. Fathers mentioned that breastfeeding preterm NBs was constraining and tiring for their partners (multiple daily sessions of milk expression with breast pumps, time constraints and need for supplements to tube-feeding…). They also mentioned how they could genuinely help their partners during breastfeeding. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this qualitative study provide insight into how fathers can be supportive of breastfeeding when experiencing a preterm birth. Targeted information and practical advice provided by caregivers on the first days of life can help fathers to get involved in the breastfeeding process.