Objective  To analyze the effect of systematic management of human milk feeding on the feeding of hospitalized preterm infants.

  Methods  Preterm infants hospitalized at the neonatal intensive care unit of Peking Union Medical College Hospital from January to December 2011 and from January to December 2013 who met certain enrollment criteria were included and their clinical data were collected. The preterm infants in 2011 served as the control group, in which the parents were given routine education and infants given routine nursing. The systematic management of human milk feeding has been implemented since 2012, including staff training, special education of the family members of preterm infants, management of human milk collection, delivery, storage, preparation, warming, and feeding, establishing a comprehensive plan system supporting human milk feeding both during hospital stay and after discharge. The preterm infants in 2013 were as the study group. The 2 groups were compared in terms of human milk feeding state, incidence of sepsis, and length of hospital stay.

  Results  One hundred and sixteen infants were enrolled, including 54 boys and 62 girls, 53 in the study group and 63 in the control group. There were no significant inter-group differences in gender, gestational age, birth weight, and length of hospital stay(P>0.05). Compared with the control group, the study group had an earlier initiation of human milk feeding (3.98±2.45)d vs. (5.05±1.76)d, P=0.008, higher percentages of human milk feeding in the first 7 days (42.98% vs. 23.14%, P=0.001) and 14 days (60.27% vs. 40.95%, P=0.001), a higher proportion of exclusively human milk fed infants (75.48% vs. 34.92%, P=0.041), and a lower incidence of sepsis (15.1% vs. 23.8%, P=0.012).

  Conclusions  The implementation of systematic management of human milk feeding could effectively facilitate human milk feeding of hospitalized preterm infants, raise the human milk feeding rate, and reduce the incidence of nosocomial infection.