CLOSING THE GAP- Breastfeeding Support for All is the theme of Breast-feeding Week celebrated every year in the first week of August.
The MoHFW-Government of India, WHO, and UNICEF recommend
- initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth
- exclusive breastfeeding (only breastfeeding, nothing else) for the first six months of life and
- continued breastfeeding till 2 years of age or beyond along with appropriate complementary
feeding after six months of age.
Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding
WHO and UNICEF launched the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) to help motivate facilities providing maternity and newborn services worldwide to implement the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. The Ten Steps summarize a package of policies and procedures that facilities providing maternity and newborn services should implement to support breastfeeding. WHO has called upon all facilities providing maternity and newborn services worldwide to implement the Ten Steps.
The implementation guidance for BFHI (Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative) emphasizes strategies to scale up to universal coverage and ensure sustainability over time. The guidance focuses on integrating the programme more fully into the healthcare system, to ensure that all facilities in a country implement the Ten Steps. Countries are called upon to fulfill nine key responsibilities through a national BFHI programme:
Critical management procedures:
1a. Comply fully with the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and relevant World Health Assembly resolutions.
1b. Have a written infant feeding policy that is routinely communicated to staff and parents.
1c. Establish ongoing monitoring and data-management systems.
- Ensure that staff have sufficient knowledge, competence, and skills to support breastfeeding.
Key clinical practices:
- Discuss the importance and management of breastfeeding with pregnant women and their families.
- Facilitate immediate and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact and support mothers to initiate breastfeeding as soon as possible after birth.
- Support mothers to initiate and maintain breastfeeding and manage common difficulties.
- Do not provide breastfed newborns any food or fluids other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.
- Enable mothers and their infants to remain together and to practice rooming in 24 hours a day.
- Support mothers to recognize and respond to their infants’ cues for feeding.
- Counsel mothers on the use and risks of feeding bottles, teats, and pacifiers.
- Coordinate discharge so that parents and their infants have timely access to ongoing support and care.
Source: The Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) has been working on the protection, promotion, and support of breastfeeding for over 30 years and earned credits and legitimacy for its work. BPNI is a technical partner of the Government of India in implementing its MAA programme as well as a member of several committees related to child health or nutrition and has maintained a track record of working on ethics. BPNI does not receive funds from sources that have conflicts of interest such as the baby food industry or its allies. For more: https://www.bfhi-india.in/home.php