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Heartbeat: Baby friendly initiative awarded to infant feeding team

August 28, 2018

Infant feeding colleagues were celebrating this month after being reaccredited as Baby Friendly by Unicef Baby Friendly UK.

The programme helps professionals provide sensitive and effective care and support for mothers, enabling them to make an informed choice about feeding, get breastfeeding off to a good start and overcome any challenges they may face. The program also supports the importance of close and loving relationships and safe responsive bottle feeding.

Thanks to this work, breastfeeding initiation rates have risen by 20 per cent since the Baby Friendly Initiative was established in the UK.

Our infant feeding team was reassessed after the original accreditation had reached its two year mark. Reassessments take place on a regular basis to ensure that the standards are being maintained and to explore how the service is building on the good work it has already done.

Louise Thompson, Infant Feeding Co-ordinator, said: “We are thrilled to have been reaccredited as Baby Friendly.

“It is an important public health programme which has also helped us to ensure we are giving new parents all the support and help they need when their baby arrives.

“Most mothers in the UK stop breastfeeding before they want to and many will be left feeling guilty and upset. It takes all of us working with mothers and babies to give evidence based effective care so feeding gets off to a good start and individual women do not feel blamed when they encounter feeding problems.

“The accolade is based on a set of standards for maternity, health visiting, neonatal and children’s centres services, which provide a roadmap for services to improve care.

“The process is quite intensive and involves colleagues and mothers being interviewed by the assessors to check audit results and discuss how the standards are being maintained. Internal audit results and outcomes such as breastfeeding initiation, continuation and exclusive rates and supplementation rates are also reviewed.