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What is the WHO/UNICEF Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI)?
In 1991, UNICEF:
“Imagine that the world had invented a new ‘dream product’ to feed and immunize everyone born on earth. Imagine also that is was available everywhere required no storage or delivery – and helped mothers to plan their families and reduce the risk of cancer. Then imagine that the world refused to use it. Towards the end of this last century of unprecedented discovery and invention this scenario is not alas a fiction. The ‘dream product’ is human breastmilk and is available to us all at birth and yet we are not using it”
The Baby-Friendly Initiative is an international initiative established by WHO/UNICEF in 1991 to promote, protect, and support the initiation and continuation of breastfeeding. This program encourages and recognizes hospitals and maternity facilities that offer an optimal level of care for mothers and infants. A Baby-Friendlyhospital/maternity facility focuses on the needs of the newborns and empowers mothers to give their infant the best possible start in life. In practical terms, a Baby-Friendly hospital/maternity facility encourages and helps women to successfully initiate and continue to breastfeed their babies, and will receive special recognition for having done so. Since the inception of the program, over 18,000 hospitals worldwide have received the Baby–Friendly designation.
"Breastfeeding requires more than the commitment on the part of one woman and her infant. Breastfeeding is an endangered practice that requires the support of everyone in society to nurture it back to its full, potent strength. It requires a commitment on part of health care institutions, decision makers, governments and individuals in the community to ensure a totally baby-friendly environment." UNICEF
Industrialized countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States have hospitals officially designated as Baby Friendly. There are now over 18,000 designated BFI facilities around the world. Sweden is currently on reassessment of all hospital maternity centres.
In order to achieve the WHO/UNICEF Baby-Friendly designation, all providers in every hospital and maternity facility will:
Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.
Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
Help mothers to initiate breastfeeding within a half-hour of birth.
Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants.
Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.
Practice rooming-in, allow mothers and infants to remain together - 24 hours a day.
Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.
Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.
All Baby-Friendly facilities adhere to the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and all Subsequent WHA Resolutions. The Code seeks to protect breastfeeding by ensuring the ethical marketing of breastmilk substitutes by industry.
Who Benefits from Baby-Friendly?
The woman and her child
- Consistent care, information and advice. Staff in maternity and pediatric units have a written policy, which they understand and follow.
- Consistent and skilled help with breastfeeding. Staff are required to be able to support women who wish to breastfeed.
- Early initiation of breastfeeding. Babies are not unnecessarily removed from mothers at birth, thereby encouraging the instinctive seeking and suckling behaviours. When mother and baby need to be separated the mother is helped with expressing her milk and the expressed milk is given to the baby
- Mother's milk is valued. No food or drink other than breastmilk is given.
- Breastfeeding is valued. Artificial nipples and soothers are avoided.
- Empowerment. The woman has authority for her own resource, breastfeeding.
Those who care for mothers and babies
- Increased knowledge, as evidence for the Global Hospital Assessment Criteria becomes better understood.
- Increased skills. Staff are committed to the support of breastfeeding mothers and their babies, even the difficult ones.
- Increased professional competence, as practices are investigated and challenged, and changes are made.
- A new respect for the woman, the baby, and their ability to breastfeed when given appropriate support. The midwife/nurse is "with woman", rather than providing nursing management of a disease.
- As the care becomes "woman-centred" rather than "task centred", all staff respect the woman's need for consistent advice and empowerment, thereby increasing cooperation and collaboration between different staff members.
Maternity units
- A high standard that is measured by the unit and confirmed by a Baby-Friendly™ team representing professional and lay assessors.
- A Global Hospital Assessment Criteria, recognised and respected by professionals and consumers.
- Valuable in marketing the services provided.
- Considerable monetary savings.
The family
- Health and development of infant.
- Health of mother.
- Cost saving, immediate and long term, breastfeeding is the "Best Investment" a family can make.
The community
- Flow-on from family.
- Environmental considerations. No waste products.
