Participation in a Quality Improvement Collaborative and Change in Maternity Care Practices

Area of Science:

• Maternal and Child Health
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Public Health Nutrition

Background:

• Post-birth maternity care practices critically influence breastfeeding success.
• The Best Fed Beginnings (BFB) initiative aimed to improve these practices.
• Measuring changes in maternity care is essential for evaluating quality improvement efforts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare improvements in maternity care practices between BFB-participating hospitals and control groups.
• To assess the impact of the BFB quality improvement collaborative on hospital care domains related to infant nutrition and care.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of collaborative learning in promoting breastfeeding-supportive maternity care.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Centers of Disease Control and Prevention's Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) survey data from 2011 and 2013.
• Compared changes in total and sub-scores across seven care domains for BFB, non-BFB, and other hospitals.
• Employed analysis of covariance to compare score changes between hospital groups.

Main Results:

• BFB hospitals demonstrated a twofold increase in mPINC scores compared to non-BFB hospitals.
• BFB hospitals achieved a threefold increase in mPINC scores relative to other hospitals.
• Significant improvements in breastfeeding-supportive maternity care were observed in BFB-participating hospitals.

Conclusions:

• Participation in quality improvement collaboratives, such as BFB, accelerates progress in implementing breastfeeding-supportive maternity care.
• The BFB initiative effectively enhanced maternity care practices, leading to better breastfeeding support.
• Collaborative learning models show promise for improving infant nutrition and care outcomes.