Literature review for - Flourish Paediatrics

8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
9. Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.
10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers
National BFHI accreditation authorities are responsible for setting goals based on international
standards. In general they include:
- The goal for early initiation should be that newborns are placed skin-to-skin within minutes of
birth, remaining for 60 minutes or longer, with all mothers encouraged to support the infant to
breastfeed when their babies show signs of readiness.
- The goal for exclusive breastfeeding, as determined at the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition,
2004, should be to increase exclusive breastfeeding to 6 months of age to a minimum of 60% by
2015, with the ultimate goal of approaching 100%.
Note: in countries where women receive voluntary counselling for HIV/AIDS, a proportion of these
women will choose replacement feeding.
Even though some of the HIV-positive women will choose exclusive breastfeeding, in such settings,
the ultimate goal will remain less than 100%.
- The goal for complementary feeding, as determined at the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition,
2004, from 6 months to 23 months or longer, is that breastfeeding continue to supply 350-500
calories a day, and an additional 3-5 feedings of nutrient rich complementary foods is needed, as
described under “optimal feeding”.
Since the BFHI began, more than 15,000 facilities in 134 countries have been awarded Baby-
Friendly status. In many areas where hospitals have been designated Baby-Friendly, more mothers
are breastfeeding their infants, and child health has improved. News of the BFHI accomplishments
and articles about effective breastfeeding programmes have been published for ten years in
UNICEF's BFHI News.
The country with the most BFHI accredited hospitals is China (>6000), but many of these hospitals
may not adhere to the basic principles of the use of infant formula.
In USA only 1.3% of hospitals are BFHI (Saadeh and Casanovas 2009)
In Australia there are currently 73 Baby Friendly accredited health services.
http://www.bfhi.org.au/text/bfhi_hospitals.html Accessed 8 Oct 2010
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