Skip to main content

Table 1 Criteria for certification on the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative

From: External evaluation and self-monitoring of the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative’s maternity hospitals in Brazil

Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding

Step 1

Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.

Step 2

Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.

Step 3

Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.

Step 4

Facilitate immediate and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact and support mothers to initiate breastfeeding within an hour of birth.

Step 5

Show mothers how to breastfeed, and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants.

Step 6

Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.

Step 7

Practice rooming-in - that is, allow mothers and infants to remain together - 24 h a day.

Step 8

Encourage breastfeeding on demand.

Step 9

Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.

Step 10

Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic

BCode

Brazilian Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. Comply with Law 11,265 of January 3, 2006 and the Brazilian version of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes

Good birth and delivery practices

PWN

Parents with Newborn. Ensure free access to the mother and father and the permanence of the mother or father 24 h a day with the newborn admitted to the neonatal unit.

WFC

Women-Friendly Care. Comply with the Global Criteria Woman-Friendly Care, which includes encouraging companions of the women choice, allowing women to drink and eat light foods during labor, encouraging women to consider the use of non-drug methods of pain relief, walk and move about during labor, assume positions of their choice while giving birth, care that does not involve invasive procedures such as rupture of the membranes, episiotomies, acceleration or induction of labor, instrumental deliveries, or caesarean sections unless specifically required for a complication and the reason is explained to the mother.