OBJECTIVE to identify prevalence of compliance with the fourth step of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative - to put the babies in skin-to-skin contact with their mothers immediately after birth for at least half an hour - in a public hospital in Northeast Brazil. METHODS this was a cross-sectional study using data from interviews with mothers who had recently given birth during a typical we...

OBJECTIVE To study whether early mother-infant contact with suckling and rooming-in reduces the rate of infant abandonment. DESIGN The infant abandonment rate was studied at a Russian hospital before and after the introduction of early mother-infant contact with suckling and rooming-in. SETTING Maternity Hospital 11 , a public hospital in St Petersburg, Russia, was chosen as the site of thi...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative on the breastfeeding practices of mothers from the urban area of Montes Claros, MG, Brazil. METHODS A comparative analysis was performed of two cross-sectional breastfeeding indicator studies with randomized samples of children under 2 years of age. One study was carried out before and the other after the Baby-Friendly ...

The objective of this pilot study was to determine women's perceptions of their levels of maternal role competence at discharge from a Baby-Friendly hospital. A convenience sample of 30 women completed two self-report questionnaires: a demographic questionnaire and the Perceived Maternal Parenting Self-Efficacy scale. Women report that they perceived high levels of maternal role competence with...

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...

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...

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 ...