UK Baby Friendly Initiative

UNICEF UK BABY FRIENDLY INITIATIVE: Health benefits of breastfeeding

The Baby-Friendly Initiative: Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding confers extensive and well-established benefits and is recognized as an extremely effective preventative health measure for both mothers and babies. Except in very few specific medical situations, breastfeeding should be universally encouraged for all mothers and infants. To improve worldwide breastfeeding initiation and duration rates, the WHO and UNICEF launched the Baby-Friendl...

Measuring compliance with the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative.

OBJECTIVE The WHO/UNICEF Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is an effective strategy to increase breast-feeding exclusivity and duration but many countries have been slow to implement it. The present paper describes the development of a computer-based instrument that measures policies and practices outlined in the BFHI. DESIGN The tool uses clinical staff/managers' and pregnant women/mo...

Global baby-friendly hospital initiative monitoring data: update and discussion.

BACKGROUND The World Health Organization (WHO)/UNICEF Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) was developed to support the implementation of the Ten Steps for Successful Breastfeeding. The purpose of this study is to assess trends in the numbers facilities ever-designated "baby-friendly," to consider uptake of the new WHO/UNICEF BFHI materials, and to consider implications for future breastfee...

Implementing and revitalizing the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative.

The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) was launched in the 1990s by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF as a global effort with hospitals, health services, and parents to ensure babies are breastfed for the best start in life. It is one of the Operational Targets of the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding endorsed in 2002 by the Fifty-Fifth World Health Assembly ...