Father's role in supporting breastfeeding of preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit: a qualitative study.

Objective: To analyse the social beliefs, representations, and experience of fathers of preterm newborns (NBs) regarding breastfeeding. Design: A qualitative interview study with analysis of transcripts using Alceste software. Setting: A tertiary university hospital NICU in France. Participants: Twenty fathers of preterm NBs hospitalised in a NICU. Results: The software classified 72% of the corpus into six lexical classes. Two main networks of classes emerged from the analysis: one for lactation, consisted of "breastfeeding” and “expression of milk” classes, and one for “care”. The analysis demonstrated that fathers were sensitive to arguments related to the health benefits of human milk. Fathers mentioned that preterm NBs breastfeeding was constraining and tiring for their partners (multiple daily sessions of milk expression with breast pumps, time constraints, and need for supplements to tube feeding...). The fathers also mentioned how they could genuinely help their partners during breastfeeding. Conclusions: The results of this qualitative study provide insight into how fathers can be supportive of breastfeeding when experiencing a preterm birth. Targeted information and practical advice provided by caregivers on the first days of life can help fathers to get involved in the breastfeeding process.