Development of Neonatal Care with The Tongue-Tie at Somdejphrasangkharach 17th Hospital, Suphanburi Province, Thailand

Abstract

This study aimed at the development of neonatal care with the tongue-tie at Somdejphrasangkharach 17th Hospital, Suphanburi province. This development process was a combination of the PDCA (plando-check-act) cycle and a participatory process with care team, obstetrician, pediatrician, dentists and nurses. This study applied Siriraj tongue-tie score for tongue-tie screening; LATCH score for breastfeeding assessment; and visual analog pain scale (0-10 numeric pain scale) for assessing maternal nipple pain. The development process was devided into two parts: (1) situation analysis of tongue-tie in newborn (from October 2011 until March 2013), and (2) toung-tie screening and care in newborns (during April 2013 until March 2014). It was found that the care program was able to improve treatment and care for newborns with toung-tie and their mothers. The rate of frenectomy increased from 3.0% before the program to 7.3%. Likewise, the LATCH score and nipple pain level changed from 6.6 and 4.6 before the program to 8.3 and 2.3, respectively.