Breast feeding: the baby friendly initiative

BMJ 1998;316:1548-1549 ( 23 May )

Editorials

Breast feeding: the baby friendly initiative

Must adapt and develop to succeed

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Breast feeding is unparalleled in providing an infant with ideal nourishment, protection from infections, and much more. ¹ ² Despite this, there is still a strong culture for bottle feedingin Britain.³ The global baby friendly hospital initiative,known in Britain as the baby friendly initiative, was launchedjointly by UNICEF and the World Health Organisation in 1991. Theobjective was to reverse the negative impact that many maternityhospital practices have on establishing breast feeding. The "tensteps" (see box) are intended as a standard for good practice.⁴The "Baby Friendly Initiative Golden Award" is given to hospitalsthat complete the 10 steps and achieve a 75% rate of breast feedingon discharge, and the British "Baby Friendly Initiative Award"to hospitals that achieve a 50% breast feeding rate on discharge.By December 1996 there were only three baby friendly hospitalsin Britain and another 10 that had a certificate of commitment(for achieving steps . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relevant Article

Breast feeding: the baby friendly initiative: Andrew Radford, Cynthia Rickitt, Anthony Williams, Julie Burgess, O O Ejidokun, J Norton, Sam Ramaiah, D P Gunasekera, and P C Gunasekera
BMJ 1998 317: 1385. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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DION, X. (1999). Infant feeding and atopic disease. Arch. Dis. Child. 81: 189b-189 [Full text]
Radford, A., Rickitt, C., Williams, A., Burgess, J., Ejidokun, O O, Norton, J, Ramaiah, S., Gunasekera, D P, Gunasekera, P C (1998). Breast feeding: the baby friendly initiative. BMJ 317: 1385-1385 [Full text]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Government support essential to create a breastfeeding culture: Carolyn Hastie
bmj.com, 23 May 1998 [Full text]
Support must continue beyond hospital: Julie Burgess
bmj.com, 22 May 1998 [Full text]
Prelacteal feeds and the initiation of breastfeeding: C Vidyashankar
bmj.com, 23 May 1998 [Full text]
UNICEF UK's community breastfeeding initiative: Hannah Hulme Hunter
bmj.com, 1 Jun 1998 [Full text]
Breast Feeding in Sri Lanka: D P Gunasekera, et al.
bmj.com, 8 Jun 1998 [Full text]
Breast feeding, Media and the arts.: O O Ejidokun, et al.
bmj.com, 29 Jun 1998 [Full text]