bc baby-friendly network

promoting breastfeeding and the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative TM in British Columbia

help Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative

In Canada the BFHI is overseen by the Breastfeeding Committee for Canada.

The BFHI is a global program initiated in 1991 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in response to the Innocenti Declaration (1990). This program encourages and recognizes hospitals and maternity facilities that offer an optimal level of care for mothers and infants. A Baby-Friendly™ hospital/maternity facility focuses on the needs of the newborns and empowers mothers and families to give their infant the best possible start in life. In practical terms, a Baby-Friendly™ hospital/maternity facility encourages and helps women to successfully initiate and continue to breastfeed their babies, and will receive special recognition for having done so. Since the inception of the program, over 15,000 hospitals worldwide have received the Baby–Friendly designation.

The BFHI protects, promotes and supports breastfeeding through the Ten Steps to Successful Breast-feeding developed by UNICEF and the World Health Organization. In order to achieve Baby-Friendly™ designation, every hospital and maternity facility must:

  1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
  2. Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.
  3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
  4. Help mothers to initiate breastfeeding within a half-hour of birth.
  5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants.
  6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.
  7. Practice rooming-in, allow mothers and infants to remain together - 24 hours a day.
  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 to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.

A Baby-Friendly™ hospital/maternity facility also adheres to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (1981). The Code seeks to protect breastfeeding by ensuring the ethical marketing of breastmilk substitutes by industry. The Code includes these ten important provisions:

  1. No advertising of products under the scope of the Code to the public.
  2. No free samples to mothers.
  3. No promotion of products in health care facilities, including the distribution of free or low-cost supplies.
  4. No company representatives to advise mothers.
  5. No gifts or personal samples to health workers.
  6. No words or pictures idealizing artificial feeding, including pictures of infants on products.
  7. Information to health workers should be scientific and factual.
  8. All information on artificial feeding, including the labels should explain the benefits of breastfeeding and all costs and hazards associated with artificial feeding.
  9. Unsuitable products such as sweetened condensed milk should not be promoted for babies.
  10. Products should be of a high quality and take account of the climatic and storage conditions of the country where they are used.

For more information about the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, and the new Baby-Friendly Initiative in Community Health Services, please visit the Breastfeeding Committee for Canada.

If your BC hospital or community health facility is interested in seeking BFHI accreditation, please contact the BC Baby Friendly Network.