Hospital Award


Florida Baby Steps to Baby-Friendly Hospital
                                        
This project is in development. Very useful information can be found on this page for making evidence-based
maternity care improvements in hospitals to better enable mothers for successful breastfeeding.

Florida Quest For Quality Maternity Care Award
Natioal Initiative Children's Healthcare Quality (NICHQ)
BACKGROUND: The Florida Breastfeeding Coalition is committed to encouraging improved maternity policy and practice in infant nutrition and care in Florida maternity care institutions.  Breastfeeding provides optimal nutrition for infants and is associated with decreased risk in infant morbidity and mortality as well as maternal morbidity.  Maternity policies and practices in hospitals and birth centers can influence breastfeeding behaviors and outcomes during a period critical to successful establishment of breastfeeding.  Much of the literature, including a Cochrane review, found that institutional changes in maternity care policies and practices makes for improved breastfeeding success by increasing initiation and duration of breastfeeding.

The Florida Breastfeeding Coalition supports the Ten Steps To Successful Breastfeeding criteria of The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF and encourages all delivering hospitals to initiate as many steps as possible in their facility.  The Ten Steps To Successful Breastfeeding has also been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Florida Breastfeeding Coalition recognizes that becoming a Baby Friendly Hospital has special challenges both administratively and financially, therefore, efforts to become Baby Friendly are often dismissed.  The new Joint Commission Perinatal Quality Core Measures recommendation that all babies leave the hospital exclusively breastmilk feed. The CDC finds that maternity hospitals are not adequately supporting breastfeeding. There is a national campaign to encourage maternity hospitals implement evidence-based practices in their maternity and infant feeding practices.

The Florida Breastfeeding Coalition has designed a quality improvement award based on the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and Baby Friendly USA 4-D Pathway.
WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative
CDC mPINC - Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition & Care
Other Helpful Resources

1 in 3 mothers stop breastfeeding without hospital support. CDC Vital Signs™: www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns
TOOL KIT of Evidence to Help Implement WHO/UNICEF
Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding  
See Tool Kit Footnotes Below

Rethinking Swaddling by Nancy Mohrbacher with references
TOOL KIT Footnotes:
1)  These slides not only offer evidence-based practice reinforced, but also give the cost savings for the implementation of The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding starting on pg. 240. Being able to show savings to hospitals time, staff and the cost saving is key to implementing changes to improve maternity and infant feeding practices.
2)  Colorado's 5 step program report Getting it Right after Delivery: Five Hospital Practices that Support Breastfeeding shows background information on their program as well as reported improved rates in initiation and duration of breastfeeding.
3) US Dept. of Health and Human Services Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding presents the importance of breastfeeding as a healthcare preventative objective.
4) 2007 CDC survey of Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care in Florida showing the strengths and weaknesses in maternity hospitals in the state of Florida.
5) The Joint Commission National Perinatal Quality Core Measures. Please especially note pages 38 and 94-95.
6) United State Breastfeeding Committee offers recommendations for implementing the Joint Commission Perinatal Quality Core Measures.
7) Healthy Birth Practices from Lamaze International supports skin-to-skin with evidence-based research.
8) Surgeon General's Call to Action to Supporting Breastfeeding released January 20, 2011.
9) The Revised 3rd Edition of Wellstart’s Lactation Management Self-Study Modules, Level 1. Excellent Self-Study with pre and post test exam for hospital staff or any healthcare worker who works with mothers and babies.
10) On June 16, 2011 U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and members of the National Prevention Council released the first ever National Prevention Strategy which includes breastfeeding as an important preventive healhtcare strategy.
11) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report August 2, 2011(Early Release/Vol.60)
 Vital Signs: Hospital Practices to Support Breastfeeding - United States, 2007 and 2009

© 2008-2011 Florida Breastfeeding Coalition, Inc.
This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for the purpose of promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding.
If you have any concerns about your health or the health of your child,
 you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional.