PURPOSE
The purpose of this research is to provide basic informations for the encouragements of premature infants' breast feeding.
METHOD
From August 10 to October 9, 2002, we have carried out a statical research which surveyed 148 mothers of premature infants registered in NICU. The sample had generated cluster-randomly from 25 General Hospitals, all over the Korea peninsula and being surveyed with 74 questionnaires.
RESULT
Mean hospitalized day of premature infants was 27.9 days. The mean total feeding period was 19.1 days and continuous breast feeding period 12.4days. They were interested in breast feeding education-they answered that they would join the breast feeding education if they were given the chance 87.8%. There was significant relation between babies fed only breast milk and the body weight of birth(p < .05). The reasons why mother gave the baby her breast milk include 'for her baby's health' and 'people said breast milk is good for babies' with a portion of 99%. The main reason why mothers could not execute breast feeding was 'the deficit of breast milk volume' 50.0% and other reason were 'because of start to support more nutritions '18.2%, 'difficulty to carry out the breast milk to hospital'13.6%. The reasen why mothers could not try breast feeding at first were 'deficit of breast milk volume'37.0%, 'not to be prepared for breast feeding because of unexpected delivery'32.6%.
CONCLUSION
We need a program to inform importance and excellent of the breast feeding and a plan to increase the premature infants' breast feeding through the importation of fortifier.