10 steps to successful breastfeeding
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- Have a written breast-feeding policy routinely communicated to health care staff.
- Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.
- Inform all pregnant women of the benefits of breastfeeding and how to carry it out successfully.
- Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within a half-hour of birth.
- Show mothers how to breastfeed, and how to maintain the flow of breastmilk even if they should be separated from their infants.
- Give newborn infants no food and drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.
- Practice rooming-in – allowing mothers and infants to remain together – 24 hours a day.
- Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
- Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (i.e dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.
- Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.
