Oral

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) used a competitive process to fund six states (CA, IN, MA, MI, NY, WA) through its Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity Program Supplemental Breastfeeding Prevention and Public Health funds to improve post-discharge support of breastfeeding mothers. The one-year program (Fall 2012-Fall 2013) focused on using community-based organizations to address the challenges that breastfeeding mothers encounter and to increase the support for mothers to continue breastfeeding after they are discharged from the hospital, especially in communities of color. The session will include an overview of the program by the CDC and presentations from funded states describing the unique strategies they are using to help mothers achieve their breastfeeding goals post-discharge. The states will also describe the indicators they are using to measure their progress in achieving program goals.

Session Objectives: Describe best practices for using community-based organizations to improve post-discharge breastfeeding support for mothers. Identify novel approaches for integrating breastfeeding support with other nutrition and physical activity programs to create healthier communities. Describe methods used to evaluate the success of the support program using multi-level measures.