The effect of acupressure on the milk volume of mothers with premature infants: a narrative review study

Despite the very important role of breastfeeding in preventing the mortality of premature infants, the decrease in the volume of breast milk in mothers with premature infants is common. Acupressure is a non-pharmacological solution to increase milk volume. The aim of the present study was to review the effect of acupressure on the milk volume of mothers with premature infants.

In this narrative review, in order to find related studies, databases of Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, Proquest, Magiran, SID, Scopus, Researchgate, and Elsevier were searched using the keywords of acupressure, milk volume, premature infant, neonatal intensive care unit and their combination with AND and OR operators in Persian and English languages from 2010 to 2023.

In this review study, 6 articles were included. The results of the studies investigated in the present study showed that acupressure is effective in increasing the volume of breast milk. It should be noted that all the studies reviewed in this study indicated on the effect of acupressure on the volume of breast milk and differ only in the degree of effectiveness.