The National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ) will receive almost $6 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to achieve their goal of having more U.S. baby-friendly hospitals by improving the quality of maternity care in nationwide hospitals and support new mothers and babies to breastfeed. The funding will be spread over three years.

The initiative will work on improving hospital practices to achieve a more baby-friendly status by offering support for breastfeeding under the criteria endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In order to improve global breastfeeding rates, the initiative will introduce Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and various science-based practices established by UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

William H. Dietz, MD, Ph.D., director of CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity commented:

“We know that breastfeeding rates are higher in Baby-Friendly hospitals, yet only 5 percent of babies in this country are born in these facilities. We need to help hospitals improve their maternity care to better support breastfeeding. This project takes steps to do that, and it offers real solutions to improve the health of mothers and babies.”

The most effective preventive care a mother can offer her child to protect its health is to breastfeed. The shortage of baby-friendly hospitals in the U.S. was highlighted in an August report issued by the CDC, which pointed out the importance of hospital practices in terms of options for feeding infants.

To increase the number of baby-friendly hospitals, the NICHQ will bring together the entire hospital staff, including experts on breastfeeding and quality improvement, leadership organization and other hospital workers to encourage system-level changes in support of breastfeeding.

They will also enable families to collaborate with each other with the aid of maternity care experts to offer support for breastfeeding, improve quality and other aspects of the baby-friendly hospital initiative. In addition the initiative will introduce a complete range of activities in order to share the best practices and exchange experiences on lessons learned as well as to develop evidence-based improvement plans.

For more information about breastfeeding, visit http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding.

Written by Petra Rattue