Introducing the North Carolina Star Approach to Breastfeeding Friendly Healthcare

Ninety-nine percent of North Carolina's births occur in hospitals. As the CDC's mPINC survey showed that NC hospitals are barely providing “passing maternity care,” it is clear that they are an ideal intervention site. The NC Blueprint for Promoting, Protecting, and Supporting Breastfeeding calls for “a breastfeeding-friendly health care system.” However, there are real and perceived barriers to achieving breastfeeding-friendly systems: poor coordination and training capacity, absence of skilled staff, high implementation costs, inadequate education about the benefits of breastfeeding, and lack of awareness regarding the role of maternity services in breastfeeding success.

To overcome these obstacles, the State Division of Public Health is launching the North Carolina Breastfeeding-Friendly Star Approach (BFSA). The BFSA is adapted from UNICEF/WHO Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), and offers an innovative means to overcome barriers collaboratively with NC state services, communities, hospitals and health care providers, delivering a more cost-effective, achievable approach to breastfeeding-friendly services.

Program implementation and evaluation guidance from Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute (CGBI) research will inform the NC BFSA, with the goal of enabling and encouraging all of North Carolina's hospitals to make successful quality improvements to their breastfeeding support programs. CGBI's research involves 13 hospitals throughout NC being supported to establish themselves as self-sustaining ‘best practices site'(with one in each perinatal care region).

This presentation will detail findings from the baseline assessment, articulate the basics of the NC BFSA, and offer valuable recommendations for other states working toward breastfeeding friendly healthcare.