Assessment of Breastfeeding Difficulties at 6-12 hours of delivery and at discharge using the LATCH SCORE: A Prospective Observational Study

Informed consent will be taken from the enrolled mother-infant dyads meeting the inclusion criteria. Demographic details of the recruited mothers will be recorded.The study is designed as a prospective observational study which will be conducted in the postnatal ward of ESIC, Hospital and PGIMSR, Basaidarapur. A total of 180 mothers will be enrolled in the study. Data collection will be done using a pre-designed proforma. Initial data will be collected within the first 6-12 hrs of observing a breastfeeding session using the LATCH Score. Breastfeeding counselling will be done daily till discharge. Again the LATCH Score will be calculated at the time of discharge. The participants will be followed up at 6 weeks of age through an in-person visit at the well-baby clinic. Breast feeding status will be assessed and weight of the baby will be recored. The LATCH Score comprises of five components. The five components are as follows, LATCH, AUDIBLE SWALLOWING, TYPE OF NIPPLE, COMFORT During breastfeeding and HOLD. A LATCH Score between 8-10 is considered good, 4-7 is considered moderate and less than 4 is considered poor. The data will be entered into the MS Excel spreadsheet and analysis will be done using the software SPSS Version 25. Categorical variables will be presented in frequency and percentage and continuous variables will be presented as mean plus/minus Standard Deviation and median. The quantitative variables will be compared using t-test and Mann Whitney U test. Qualitative variables will be compared by chi-square testing. For testing significance P-value of less than 0.05 will be considered statistically significant.