User-centred development of an eHealth intervention to support infant feeding choice and confident and safe breastfeeding or formula feeding

母乳喂养婴儿至6个月大可降低婴儿和母亲患严重疾病的风险。在英国，大多数母亲在分娩后开始母乳喂养，并希望继续母乳喂养。然而，许多母亲在母乳喂养方面遇到了困难，如疼痛或担心产生足够的乳汁，因此，提前停止母乳喂养。这意味着他们错过了对自己和婴儿的重要健康益处。通常，母亲在母乳喂养方面遇到的问题可以通过建议和支持来预防或解决，但卫生专业人员没有时间或技能向所有母亲始终如一地提供这一点。对于选择不母乳喂养或提前停止母乳喂养的母亲来说，另一种选择是用特制的配方奶奶瓶喂养婴儿。然而，家长们报告说，他们发现很难获得有关如何安全地奶瓶喂养的信息，这可能意味着他们在消毒或准备喂养时出错，或者鼓励婴儿“过度喂养”。这进一步增加了奶瓶喂养对幼儿的健康风险。许多孕妇、母亲和服务提供者通过在线查找寻求更多关于婴儿喂养的信息，但他们发现很难找到准确可靠的信息来源。网上有很多可靠的婴儿喂养信息来源，比如NHS Choice或特定的育儿网站，但很少有网站是在设计时考虑到用户体验的，这意味着一些父母可能仍然很难找到他们需要的信息。该项目旨在评估家长和医护人员的信息需求，并直接让他们参与设计新的门户网站和智能手机应用程序。这些工具的目的是向父母提供最新的、以证据为基础的信息，并增加他们对所选择的婴儿喂养方法的信心。该门户网站将包含一些部分，帮助父母决定他们希望如何喂养他们的婴儿，并准备安全地这样做，无论他们选择哪种方法。这款智能手机应用程序旨在支持开始母乳喂养的母亲克服共同的困难，并将包括有效母乳喂养技术的视频指导，以及专门为提高母亲继续母乳喂养的信心而设计的部分。门户网站和应用程序的内容和功能都将得到明确的说明和设计，以吸引人和易于使用。建成后，将向考文垂贫困地区的一家儿童中心的所有家长和工作人员提供完整的干预(网络门户和智能手机应用程序)。我们将衡量员工和家长对门户网站和应用程序的接受程度，并就干预的有用性征求他们的反馈。这项干预旨在支持父母对婴儿喂养更有信心，无论他们选择哪种方法。据推测，信心的增强将导致母乳喂养率的提高和奶瓶喂养的安全，这将减少婴儿严重疾病的发生率，并促进父母福祉的改善。未来计划进行一项研究，以测试干预措施在增加母乳喂养和改善婴儿健康方面的有效性。如果这项干预被证明是成功的，它将被实施到英国的国民健康保险制度和公共卫生服务中，并将与国际合作伙伴接洽，以考虑调整干预措施，使其适用于中国等对婴儿喂养有类似担忧的国家。

Breastfeeding infants until they are 6 months old reduces the risk of serious illnesses for both infants and mothers. In the UK, most mothers start to breastfeed after they give birth and want to continue. However, many mothers experience difficulties with breastfeeding such as pain or concerns about producing enough milk, and as a result, stop breastfeeding earlier than they intended. This means they miss important health benefits for themselves and their infants. Often, the problems that mothers experience with breastfeeding could be prevented or resolved with advice and support, but health professionals do not have the time or skills to offer this consistently to all mothers. For mothers who choose not to breastfeed, or who stop breastfeeding early, the alternative is to bottle-feed infants with specially prepared 'formula' milk. However, parents report finding it difficult to access information about how to bottle feed safely, which may mean they make errors in sterilisation or preparation of feeds, or encourage babies to 'overfeed'. This further increases the health risk to young infants as a result of bottle feeding. Many pregnant women, mothers, and service providers seek to find out more information about infant feeding by looking online, but they find it difficult to identify accurate and reliable information sources. There are many reliable sources of reliable infant feeding information online such as NHS Choices, or specific parenting websites, but few have been designed with the user-experience in mind meaning some parents may still find it difficult to find the information they need. This project aims to assess the information needs of parents and healthcare staff and directly involve them in the design of a new web-portal and smartphone application. The aim of these tools is to provide parents with up-to-date, evidence-based information and to increase their confidence in whichever infant feeding method they choose. The web-portal will contain sections to help parents decide how they wish to feed their baby, and to prepare to do so safely whichever method they choose. The smartphone app will aim to support mothers who initiate breastfeeding to overcome common difficulties, and will include video guidance on effective breastfeeding techniques, and sections designed specifically to improve mothers' confidence to continue breastfeeding. The content and features of both the web-portal and app will be clearly specified and designed to be attractive and easy to use. When built, the complete intervention (web-portal and smartphone app) will be made available for all parents and staff associated with one Children's Centre in a deprived area of Coventry. We will measure the uptake of the web-portal and app by staff and parents, and ask them for feedback about the usefulness of the intervention. This intervention aims to support parents to feel more confident about infant feeding, whichever method they choose. It is hypothesised that improvements in confidence will result in increased rates of breastfeeding and safer bottle feeding which will reduce the incidence of serious infant illness and promote improved parental wellbeing. A future study is planned to test the effectiveness of the intervention for increasing breastfeeding and improving infant health. Should the intervention prove successful, it will be implemented into NHS and public health services in the UK and approaches will be made to international partners to consider adapting the intervention for use in countries such as China where there are similar concerns with infant feeding.