title: Increasing breast milk production for premature infants with a relaxation/imagery audiotape.
abstract: Many women whose premature infants are hospitalized in a newborn intensive care unit choose to express breast milk for their babies. Yet anxiety, fatigue, and emotional stress are powerful inhibitors of lactation. To facilitate the breast-feeding experience, intervention mothers were given a 20-minute audio cassette tape based on relaxation and visual imagery techniques. At a single follow-up expression of milk at the hospital approximately 1 week after enrollment, they expressed 63% more breast milk than a randomized group of control mothers. The fat content of the breast milk in the two groups was not significantly different. Among a small group of mothers whose infants were receiving mechanical ventilation, the increase in milk volume compared with that of control mothers was 121%. Longer-term effects of the relaxation/imagery approach (such as extending the duration of breast-feeding or reducing parental stress after hospital discharge) and the physiologic basis for the increased volume of expressed milk (improved milk production v more efficient milk ejection) are appropriate topics for future research.
authors.affiliation: University of New Mexico, Department of Education, Albuquerque.
authors.forename: S D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Feher
authors.forename: L R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Wilde
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature; D007774:Lactation / Q000523:psychology*; D008895:Milk, Human / Q000032:analysis; D011247:Pregnancy; D012064:Relaxation Therapy; D013637:Tape Recording