A Survey on the Awareness of Human Milk Bank in Korean Female Health Care Providers

Won-Ho Hahn; Joon-Hwan Song; Suyeon Park; Nam Mi Kang; Sukhee Ahn; Seunghyun Song

doi:10.14734/PN.2017.28.1.11

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Hahn, Song, Park, Kang, Ahn, and Song: A Survey on the Awareness of Human Milk Bank in Korean Female Health Care Providers

Original Article

Perinatology 2017;28(1):11-20.

Published online: 19 March 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14734/PN.2017.28.1.11

A Survey on the Awareness of Human Milk Bank in Korean Female Health Care Providers

Won-Ho Hahn, MD, PhD¹, Joon-Hwan Song, MD, PhD¹, Suyeon Park, PhD², Nam Mi Kang, RN, PhD^3,, Sukhee Ahn, RN, PhD⁴, Seunghyun Song, MA⁵

¹Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Soon Chun Hyang University, Korea,

²Department of Biostatistics, Soonchunhyang Medical Center, Seoul, Korea,

³Department of Nursing, Konkuk University, Chungju, Korea,

⁴Department of Nursing, College of Nursing, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea,

⁵Department of Political Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Correspondence to Nam Mi Kang, PhD Department of Nursing, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwondaero, Chungju-si, Chungbuk, 27478 Korea Tel: +82-2-450-3033 E-mail: nmkang03@kku.ac.kr

Received 17 October 201624 December 2016 Accepted 4 January 2017

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objective

Human milk bank is known as best alternative option for sick infants. However, only two human milk banks (HMBs) are working in Korea. In the present study, we evaluated the awareness on the HMB in female health care provider to find out the issues that would help facilitating HMB establishment in Korea.

Methods

The survey questionnaire was developed by a team composed with neonatologists, obstetricians, nurses, nutritionists, and health care specialists. The survey was performed for female health care workers in Soon Chun Hyang Cheonan Hospital between March and June in 2016. Eighty-eight of 110 questionnaires were collected and the results were analyzed.

Results

Most of subjects were found to have correct knowledge on the breast milk feeding. However, only 49% of subjects had awareness of the presence of HMB. Unfortunately, less than half of them could get information about HMB by official way including mass media. In addition, 76% of subjects were found not to want to use HMB. Most important reason was found as a concern on the safety of donor milk including life style of donors, infection controls, and possible nutritional loss of banked milk.

Conclusion

The purpose and function of HMB was not widely educated and it seems to be one of most important reasons why women have negative concept about HMB in Korea. Thus, further study is warranted with more numbers of subjects after active public education about the HMB.

Keywords: Breast milk, Health care provider, Human milk bank, Survey

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Fig. 1

Distribution of the knowledge of breast milk feeding according to the general characteristics of subjects.

Figure 2.

Questionnaires for the knowledge of breast milk feeding. The questionnaire numbers refer the corresponding numbers in Supplemental Table S1 (Q25-Q44).

Figure 3.

Questionnaires for the important activities of breast milk bank in Korea. The questionnaire numbers refer the corresponding numbers in Supplemental Table S1 (Q59-Q70).

Table 1.

Demographic Characteristics of Female Subjects

n (%)
Age (years, Mean±SD) Living area	30.61±7.60 Urban	19 (21.6)
	Rural	69 (78.4)
Marriage	Yes	42 (47.7)
	No	46 (52.3)
Experience of delivery	Yes	38 (43.2)
	No	50 (56.8)
Number of children	0	42 (51.9)
	1	13 (16.0)
	≥2	26 (32.1)
Delivery mode	Vaginal delivery	26 (63.4)
	Cesarean section	15 (36.6)
Presence of allergic disease of children	Yes	7 (17.5)
	No	33 (82.5)
First feeding mode	Breast milk	23 (50.0)
	Formula	15 (32.6)
	Combined feeding	8 (17.4)
Main feeding mode	Breast milk	15 (32.6)
	Combined	22 (47.8)
	Formula	9 (19.6)
Experience of shortage of breast milk production	Yes	26 (41.3)
	No	37 (58.7)
Experience of excessive breast milk production	Yes	7 (8.0)
	No	56 (63.6)

Table 2.

Comparison of the variables between females according to the answers about necessity of breast milk bank in Korea

		Breast milk bank is necessary (n=44)		Breast milk bank is not necessary (n=31)		P-value∗
		n	%	n	%
Living area	Urban Rural	12 32	27.3 72.7	6 25	19.4 80.6	0.429
Age (years)	<30	24	54.5	11	36.7	0.108
	30-40	8	18.2	12	40.0
	>40	12	27.3	7	23.3
Income of a month (1,000 Won)	<3,000	14	32.6	9	31.0	0.890
	3,000-4,000	15	34.9	9	31.0
	>4,000	14	32.6	11	37.9
Marriage	Yes	19	43.2	19	61.3	0.122
	No	25	56.8	12	38.7
Experience of delivery	Yes	19	43.2	17	54.8	0.320
	No	25	56.8	14	45.2
Experience of premature delivery^†	Yes	3	6.8	2	6.7	1.000
	No	41	93.2	28	93.3
Number of children	0	22	53.7	11	39.3	0.317
	1	5	12.2	7	25.0
	≥2	14	34.1	10	35.7
First feeding mode	Breast milk	9	19.6	14	30.4	0.246
	Combined	10	21.7	5	10.9
	Formula	4	8.7	4	8.7
Main feeding mode	Breast milk	8	17.4	7	15.2	0.635
	Combined	12	26.1	10	21.7
	Formula	3	6.5	6	13.0
Presence of allergic disease of children^‡	Yes	5	26.3	2	11.1	0.405
	No	14	73.7	16	88.9
Importance of breast milk bank activities (score, 0-5; mean±SD)
Life style of donors^§			3.5±0.4		3.5±0.5	0.258
Infectious agents control^§			3.8±0.4		3.6±0.5	0.095
Nutritional elements^§			3.4±0.6		3.5±0.6	0.715
Management of the Bank^§			2.9±0.9		2.9±0.8	0.801

^∗ P-valueby chi-squared test

^† P-value by fisher's exact test

^‡ P-value by fisher's exact test

^§ P-value student t-test

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