Draft Australian Dietary Guidelines (PDF, 3MB) - Eat For Health

Effective education programs include information about the benefits of breastfeeding, principles oflactation, myths, common problems and solutions, and skills training [918]. Peer support wasparticularly useful for socioeconomically disadvantaged women, and peer counsellors were mosteffective if they were of similar cultural and social status to the women they were counselling. Theoptimal mix of interventions to improve breastfeeding practices includes education of mothers,peer support, hospital practices such as ‘rooming-in’ and ‘early skin-to-skin contact’, staff training,development and implementation of hospital policy, media campaigns, and paid maternity leave[876].A more recent Cochrane review agrees that there is a protective effect of provision of support onincreasing duration of breastfeeding [874].5.3.2.2 Promoting breastfeeding in hospitalsThe Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (UNICEF and WHO) has been shown to increasebreastfeeding rates in accredited hospitals [919]. The steps include:• Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff• Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy• Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding• Place babies in skin-to-skin contact with their mothers immediately following birth for atleast an hour and encourage mothers to recognise when their babies are ready tobreastfeed, offering help if needed.• Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they should beseparated from their infants• Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breastmilk, unless medically indicated• Practice rooming-in, allow mothers and infants to remain together-24 hours a day• Encourage breastfeeding on demand• Give no artificial teats or dummies to breastfeeding infants• Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support and refer mothers on discharge from thefacility.Early contact improves breastfeeding outcomes [14]. Interventions aimed at either delaying orspeeding up the length of the first feed should be avoided. Hospital practices at the time of birthcan be the first line of support for a new mother. Difficulties encountered can be quickly resolvedby staff with appropriate experience, and hospitals can encourage ‘rooming-in’ to facilitatefrequent mother and child contact [903]. The use of prelacteal feeds or other liquids while inhospital interferes with the establishment of lactation and is contrary to the BFHI principles.Mothers should have contact with their babies as soon after birth and for as long as they wish asthis improves breastfeeding outcomes [874].DRAFT Australian Dietary Guidelines- December 2011 142