Exploring factors influencing maternal willingness to donate breast milk: a descriptive qualitative study

Breast milk donation is a critical intervention to improve neonatal nutritional security, especially for high-risk infants such as preterm and low-birth-weight babies, yet China's breast milk donation system is underdeveloped with a stark gap between maternal donation willingness and actual behavior. The aim of this study was to explore the factors influencing maternal breast milk donation intentions in China.

In a tertiary hospital in Chongqing, China, 15 women expressed their facilitators and in hibitors of breast milk donation. The results of the interviews were analyzed individually through Nvivo software in a phenomenological approach, emphasizing the depth of each participant's experience.

Four main themes emerged regarding the factors influencing maternal willingness to donate breast milk. Theme 1, "Maternal own cognitive factors"; Theme 2, "Social support and environmental factors"; Theme 3, "Information access and dissemination factors"; and Theme 4: "Donation process factors".

The factors affecting Chinese mothers' willingness to donate breast milk involve not only personal perceptions, but also the embedded influence of domestic social and cultural contexts, with the donation process emerging as a particularly critical factor. Therefore, it is recommended that healthcare professionals target the aforementioned four dimensions, streamline the breast milk donation process and improve maternal awareness of breast milk donation, thereby boosting the breast milk donation rate in China.