The Economics of Mother's Milk Feedings in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this project is to investigate the economic outcomes of breastfeeding in very low birth weight infants (VLBW, <1500 grams) admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at birth. VLBW infants are an important population for health economics research because they are born disproportionately to low income and minority women, and they require a significant amount of health care resources [2, 37] (CDC 2004, Rogoski 1999). The literature review will show that, despite the unique needs of this infant group, limited research has been conducted on the economic impacts of dose of breastfeeding in VLBW infants. 2 parallel analyses will be performed to study these outcomes. The first analysis will use regression modeling to examine the dose of mother's milk (dose is the percent of total feedings that are breast milk) that results in the best economic outcome as measured by hospital costs. The second analysis will use economic costing techniques to identify the exact cost to produce 1 ounce of mother's milk for VLBW infants by their mothers. Both projects involve retrospective study of previously collected data. Both analyses will attempt to show that mother's milk is the most cost efficient as well as the clinical choice feeding method for VLBW infants. This research is relevant to public health because increasing resource constraints have made finding cost effective measures a top priority for health officials. This project is investigating a natural therapy that has been shown to provide a multitude of health benefits (i.e., lower rates of illness, improved development) for VLBW infants. The study will help health officials to meet public breastfeeding goals by providing further economic arguments for mother's milk feeding. Finally, it will show mothers and providers the dose of milk that needs to be achieved in order to gain maximum economic benefit and the resources that are needed to achieve that dose.