For my summer practicum I will be working towards the Baby-Friendly certification for the Maniilaq Health Center.  The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to encourage and recognize hospitals and birthing centers that offer an optimal level of care for infant feeding. The BFHI assists hospitals in giving mothers the information, confidence, and skills needed to successfully initiate and continue breastfeeding their babies or feeding formula safely, and gives special recognition to hospitals that have done so.

To achieve the Baby-Friendly Designation, facilities must register with Baby-Friendly USA; complete all the requirements; and ultimately demonstrate during an on-site assessment that we have correctly integrated all of the “ten steps to successful breastfeeding’ into our practice for healthy newborns. 

There are four phases to this process. 

1. Discovery Phase: Facilities register with Baby-Friendly USA and learn about the process.

2. Development Phase: Facilities make a commitment to the process, receive a registry of intent certificate, and receive a comprehensive set of plans for how they will implement the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. Extensive technical assistance from Baby-Friendly USA is provided. All plans are reviewed and approved by Baby-Friendly USA before the facility moves to the next phase.

3. Dissemination Phase: Facilities implement the plans they developed during the prior phase.  

4. Designation Phase: Facilities review their implementation of the Ten Steps and implement a quality assurance program. When ready, they undergo an on-site assessment conducted by a Baby-Friendly assessment team and a review by the External Review Board. Upon successful completion of this process, the Baby-Friendly designation is conferred. If the facility does not pass on first assessment, it may apply for re-assessment when identified problems have been rectified.  

Participation in this initiative provides several possible benefits for the facility:

• Quality Improvment:  many of the ten steps are easily adaptable as QI projects.
• Cost containment:  increased breastfeeding rates can have impact on many health care costs from postpartum hemmorrhage, to decreased incidence of ear infection.
• Public relations/marketing:  families who feel adequately supported during the vulnerable postpartum days can speak powerfully for a birth facility
• Prestige:  the receipt of this international award is an achievement to celebrate.

Obviously this is a very lengthy process and I won’t be able to complete all four phases this summer, but I am hopeful that we will be able to make tremendous progress towards this goal.  I will be working closely with the hospital administrator during this process.  I have already learned quite a bit about trying to implement a new program within an organization; there are many channels it must go through before the final stamp of approval is given.