Online Program

293153
Becoming baby-friendly: Improving breastfeeding support in US hospitals


Monday, November 4, 2013 : 12:40 p.m. - 12:45 p.m.

Charles J. Homer, MD, MPH, CEO, National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality (NICHQ), Boston, MA
This 16.5 minute video tells the story of four hospitals as they begin their journey to Baby-Friendly status through their work in the Best Fed Beginnings project. Breastfeeding provides many well-documented health benefits for babies and mothers. Yet breastfeeding rates remain low in the United States. Responding to the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Breastfeeding Quality, the Best Fed Beginnings initiative is helping hospitals improve breastfeeding rates by improving maternity practices to better support mothers who choose to breastfeed. Sponsored by the CDC and conducted by NICHQ (the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality), Best Fed Beginnings is a nationwide quality improvement initiative in which 89 hospitals are working collaboratively to achieve Baby-Friendly designation.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Administration, management, leadership
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Identify emerging lessons regarding exclusive breastfeeding promotion in hospitals based on experiences of four hospitals participating in the Best Fed Beginnings initiative. Explain how hospitals participating in this national collaborative are changing maternity practices to better support mothers who choose to breastfeed.

Keyword(s): Breastfeeding, Hospitals

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the President and CEO of the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality (NICHQ), the organization that leads the Best Fed Beginnings project and produced this video.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.