WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Sreelekshmi L.*, Anila K. P., Priya Pavithran, Priya Thomas, Pratima Singh and Saranya S. Kumar

ABSTRACT

The greatest substitute for mother's milk in situations where it is unavailable or insufficient is pasteurized donorhuman milk. Breastfeeding lowers the risk of newborn infections in infants considerably. Objectives: To assessthe effectiveness of an education session on knowledge regarding human milk donation among antenatal mothersand to find out the association between knowledge on human milk donation among antenatal mothers and selecteddemographic characteristics. Methodology: The researchers used a one-group pretest-posttest quantitative preexperimentalstudy design. The study included 63 pregnant mothers from a tertiary care hospital's Obstetric andGynecological department. Purposive sampling was used to pick the samples. The study included mothers whowere more than 32 weeks pregnant. A semi-structured knowledge questionnaire was used to examine pregnantmothers' understanding of human milk donation. Before collecting data, an ethical clearance was acquired.Subjects who fulfilled the sample selection criteria were selected, and informed written consent was taken,followed by a pre-test questionnaire was administered. Health education on human milk donation was given toeach subjectfor 20 minutes. The post-test was taken fifteen days after the pre-test. Results: The study resulthighlighted that the pre-test mean score of awareness was 12.92 ±3.05, the post-test mean score was 19.81±3.23,and the mean difference was 6.89. The obtained "t" value was -13.808, which was statistically highly significant atthe p<0.001 level. Thus, it was concluded that health education had a significant role in improving the level ofknowledge regarding human milk donation. Conclusion: When donor human milk from human milk banksbecomes available, to promote breast feeding it has to be utilized. More public awareness programs need to beconducted to promote the utility of such services, there by neonatal mortality and morbidity can be reduced to anextend.