In early August, infants in the University Hospital’s maternity ward sported tiny T-shirts that proclaimed, “I Eat at Mom’s.”
The T-shirts helped kick off the U’s new Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative to promote breastfeeding.
The initiative is part of a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund to encourage and recognize hospitals that offer an optimal level of care for lactation.
“They are safe practices, supported by evidence, that the hospital needs to adopt that increase longevity (in infants) and will increase the chances of successful breastfeeding,” U Hospital’s international board lactation consultant Mary Erickson said.
UNICEF and WHO initiated the program in the 1990s because international breastfeeding rates were falling, hospital nurse Brenda Gulliver said.
To be designated as a baby friendly hospital, hospitals must meet specific criteria that relate to supporting and educating parents on the long-term health benefits of breastfeeding.
“(The initiative) is a voluntary option that you apply for,” Gulliver said. “The hospital follows 10 steps and (advocates from UNICEF) come and do a site visit. They give you a designation if you’ve done all of your steps. It’s not only exciting, but a pretty prestigious designation to receive.”
Only 48 of the 16,000 hospitals worldwide currently participating in the initiative are located in the United States.
The strict criteria aren’t the only reason many U.S. hospitals ignore the global initiative. A hospital must also decline money and gifts provided by infant formula companies to the hospitals and patients.
Erickson said she hopes the hospital will soon be able to provide the gifts to new mothers that were once provided by formula companies as an advertising method.
She believes the hospital’s achievement of the baby friendly designation will attract enough new clientele to compensate for the loss of funding from the companies.
Some of the steps outlined by UNICEF and WHO to achieve the baby friendly designation include maintaining a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff, helping mothers initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth, and practicing “rooming in,” (mothers and infants remaining together 24 hours a day).
“Evidence-based research shows that breast-feeding is better for the baby in the long run,” Gulliver said. “The first reason (is) that breast milk is nature’s formula. It’s specifically designed for the baby.”
Recent studies also show that women who breastfeed have decreased risks of breast and ovarian cancer, anemia and osteoporosis.
The initiative’s purpose is to educate staff members and new mothers with this information. The U Hospital started promoting the initiative about a year and a half ago and hopes to receive the baby friendly designation in December 2007.