Our Promise to Breastfeeding Families

In 1991, the World Health Organization and UNICEF launched a world-wide strategy to improve the health of infants and young children called ‘The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative’. This initiative seeks to improve maternity services by focusing on the needs of the newborns and empowering families to provide their infant with the best start in life. The goal: 75% of mothers exclusively breastfeeding (or exclusively feeding human milk).
As part of our commitment to the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance promises our breastfeeding families that:

• We will have a breastfeeding policy that all nurses follow;
• Our staff members have breastfeeding education;
• We will provide skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby right after birth;
• We will teach mothers how to position and latch their babies for breastfeeding;
• We will feed breastfed babies breast milk only;
• We will not separate families from babies unless it is medically necessary;
• We will encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies for as long and as often as the baby needs;
• We will not give breastfed babies soothers or bottles with nipples;
• We will make sure that families are aware of community programs and support for breastfeeding.

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative seeks to protect, promote and support the continuation of breastfeeding, but it also serves to ensure informed decision making and hospital support for each family’s decisions around their newborn’s care. Hospitals that demonstrate success in doing so are awarded with a Baby Friendly designation. Since the beginning of this initiative, more than 20,000 hospitals in 156 countries have received this designation,Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is striving to be one of them.