Development the Clinical Guideline of Human Milk Bank in Iran

Abstract Background Clinical guidelines are recommendations produced by systematic methods assisting health care providers in making the right decisions. The existence of Mothers’ Milk Banks (MMBs) plays an important role in increasing exclusive breastfeeding in low birth-weight infants. More than one million infants under one year of age die annually because they are not breastfed. The present study was done to develop a clinical guideline for MMB. Methods The study was a multistage integrated study conducted in three steps according to the NICE model. In the first step, the components of a clinical guideline for MMB were determined through multiple data centers to search and resource integration and a draft was subsequently prepared. In the second step, each component was reviewed considering the expert agreement and the clinical guideline was finally developed. In the third step, the AGREE questionnaire was used by 10 experts to measure the utility and quality of the proposed program as well as its national feasibility. Quantitative data was analyzed in SPSS20 using descriptive statistics. Results The clinical guideline included the necessary measures before MMB development (establishing MMB infrastructure, enhancing awareness for supporting MMB, creating a network for communicating with different units, developing the key rules and guidelines as well as ethical points) and the necessary measures while using MMB (donors, working processes on the donated milk, and the recipients). The content was reviewed by forming a focus group and their corrective comments were considered in the clinical guideline. Utilizing the AGREE tool, the results of the survey showed that 90% of the respondents strongly recommended guideline use. Conclusions It is hoped that this clinical guideline, provided by the order of Neonatal Health Bureau based on the culture and religion of the Iranian community, could be an effective step to improve the care and treatment process of preterm infants. Moreover, with the proper use of it, the treatment team staff can support the premature infants and their parents by promoting breastfeeding and reducing the side effects of using formula and the mortality of this group of infants.