Nipple Shields to Support Breastfeeding: systematic review and co-production of dissemination materials

PI Title: Rebekah Burrow

Lead member: Oxford

What are nipple shields and why do they matter?
Lots of babies struggle to latch on to the breast to breastfeed, especially babies who are born prematurely. Also, lots of people stop breastfeeding earlier than they want to because of the pain they experience when breastfeeding.
A nipple shield is a very thin, flexible piece of silicone that is placed over a nipple to help a baby latch on, or to reduce breastfeeding pain. They have a cone shape to go over the nipple, a flat base that covers the areola (skin around the nipple) to hold them in place, and tiny holes in the cone to allow milk to flow into the baby’s mouth.

Why do we need research?
There is a lot of conflicting information about whether nipple shields are helpful or safe for breastfeeding babies and their mothers. Women have described to us:
• being recommended nipple shields by friends
• being told they must or must not use nipple shields by health care professionals
• not being able to find information about whether nipple shields “work” or how safe they are
• not being able to access support to use them

People have very different experiences - one woman told us:
“nipple shields were what saved us”.
Another told us:
“it was a tool that wouldn't fit”.

What research will we do?
We will:
• Carry out a “systematic review”. This is a type of research that gathers and analyses all the existing research. This will tell us what research has already been done on nipple shields and what the results were.
• Interview people with experience of breastfeeding, or of not being able to breastfeed - our “Patient and Public Involvement Contributors”. We will interview health care professionals and charity workers who support breastfeeding - our “User Contributors”. We will figure out what really matters to people who might want to use nipple shields, and to people who support breastfeeding.
• Work with our Contributors and a professional illustrator, to decide how to show the results. We will show the results that really matter in a way that people can understand and use easily. This is called “co-production”.
• Work with our Contributors to decide how to get the results to people who might want to use nipple shields, and to people who support breastfeeding. This is called a "dissemination strategy".

What do we want to achieve?
We want to enable people who might want to use nipple shields, and people who support breastfeeding, to be able to easily find and understand the information that really matters to them, and to make informed decisions about whether or not to use nipple shields when breastfeeding.