Conceptualization of a Breastfeeding Friendly Community

Background

Conceptualizing a Breastfeeding Friendly Community (BFC) is an important step in identifying what it will take to develop communities where all women are able to breastfeed and all babies have access to human milk.  This can be challenging since communities around the world differ significantly by level of development, culture, religion, resources, gender roles, and labor markets. The goal of this study was to develop a robust conceptualization of a BFC that has global relevance. 

Methods

We used Delhi Methodology to obtain the opinion of experts around the world. In Round 1 we gathered qualitative data on what our experts believed constituted BFC (23 people/18 countries); we used these data to develop a quantitative survey that was again administered to global experts (35 people/21 countries).

Results

We summarized the Round 1 results into 8 key conditions that are important to the development of a BFC; each condition has associated objectives and strategies that might be necessary to its achievement.  We learned from Round 2 that most respondents, despite coming from diverse settings, are in agreement with the 8 conditions and key objectives.  It is notable that there times when the objectives and/or strategies that might help achieve one condition are in conflict with those used to achieve a different one; it is also the case that the conditions themselves may be in conflict at times. Hence, there are both synergies as well as tensions imbedded in the conditions, objectives and strategies. These embedded tensions make achieving a BFC challenging.