BMJ 1998;317:1385 ( 14 November )

Letters

Breast feeding: the baby friendly initiative

    Unicef's baby friendly initiative is making great progress in UK
    Support must continue beyond hospital
    The arts and the media can help
    In Sri Lanka only quarter of babies under 4 months are exclusively breast fed

Unicef's baby friendly initiative is making great progress in UK

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

EDITOR---We share Malik and Cutting's enthusiasm for Unicef's baby friendly initiative in the United Kingdom but were disappointed that they did not acknowledge the great progress made over the past year.1 It is pessimistic to state that hospitals have been slow to work with the initiative. In fact, almost all units are working towards baby friendly accreditation; 11 British maternity units have achieved the required standard and another 40 have a certificate of commitment. Although Malik and Cutting suggest that hospitals might be demoralised by unachievable targets (such as the 75% breastfeeding rate required for the global baby friendly award), we removed this requirement for the United Kingdom's standard award in order to focus on the support and encouragement of best clinical practice.

It is also unfair to suggest that the baby friendly initiative is confined to hospitals. On 15 May we launched best practice standards for community healthcare settings, with . . . [Full text of this article]
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Breast feeding: the baby friendly initiative
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