MCFC

to become the world’s leading educational site in breastfeeding and lactation management.

We are passionately committed to empower every service care provider caring for mothers and babies (medical and non-medical) with the evidence based knowledge and updated skills needed to support the mother-infant dyad to breastfeed optimally in order to have the perfect start in life.

We anticipate women and health workers needs to be protected from marketing of products that may carry misinformation about optimal feeding practices and deprive women from their rights to the perfect motherhood experience.

We are accountable for the rights of speechless babies who are helpless in demanding their rights to breastfeeding and not to be separated from their mothers.

We sincerely believe that breastmilk and breastfeeding are the sole most efficient, safe and complete nourishment and nurturing means for humans to meet their unique needs of growth and development specific to their species.

We value the benefits that breastfeeding carries to both the mother and baby at short and long term and harmful effects of introducing other feeds and it is therefore our responsibility to rebuild the confidence of the public and service providers in this practice in face of the aggressive marketing of misinformation from infant milk formula companies.

MCFC and its partners work intently to shift quality of care in MCH and maternity services to communicating factual, scientific, evidence based informed choice so that excellence is guaranteed to all mothers and babies.

Stakeholders are all those who have a stake in the strategy, including health professionals; working in hospitals or primary health care centers caring for babies and mothers, such as midwives, nurses, health visitors, and doctors; pharmacists, auxiliary workers, commissioners and managers; mother support group leaders and volunteers; mothers, babies and their families.

An increasing body of evidence has built up over the past decade to indicate that improving breastfeeding rates would have a positive outcome on public health. However, although the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Department of Health recommend that all babies are exclusively breastfed for the first six months, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding at six months in the Arab region is less than 30 per cent and even lower continuity rates to 2 years resulting in the rising burden of both communicable and non-communicable as well as the associated mental health problems.

Because of this, the governments in all countries in our region have requested that health services and local authorities take steps to improve breastfeeding rates.

Improving breastfeeding rates is a complex process that requires a multifaceted approach involving a number of agencies and disciplines. Creating a breastfeeding strategy that focuses on a leader in education in infant feeding and lactation management based on up-to-date scientific practice for a region, can be a useful first step.

We expect that some health providers will have professional experience of breastfeeding, while others may have little knowledge of breastfeeding or what is required to improve breastfeeding rates. Therefore, this site offers guidance on how to support mothers to breastfeed and manage ongoing common or special situations.

The major constraint in educating in breastfeeding is that many health professionals and public “assume knowledge”. Although breastfeeding is not a particularly complex issue, poor education over many years has meant that there are often gaps in people’s knowledge. Delivering pertinent background information can therefore save misunderstanding and increase the likelihood of ‘buy in’ from our customers.

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative

The WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative is a global accreditation program aimed at improving practice in health services in order to increase breastfeeding rates. This guide has been adapted from the WHO/UNICEF BFHI material.

Therefore we are here to provide guidance for Baby Friendly Hospitals on strategy and suggested content and structure of making and implementing a policy and background information on the evidence, drivers and good practice for educating staff in breastfeeding and examples for sustaining and improving breastfeeding rates in designated Baby friendly Hospitals.

Sample of Baby Friendly Hospitals strategy: Aims and Objectives

Aim

• To improve maternal and child health through increased breastfeeding rates.

• To increase breastfeeding rates by X per cent at initiation and by X per cent at 6-8 weeks.

Objective

• Develop an accurate audit mechanism for collecting breastfeeding data at birth and 6-8 weeks.

• Achieve Baby Friendly accreditation in all appropriate hospital and community health-care settings.

• Provide appropriate ongoing support for breastfeeding mothers at wider community level in Order to encourage a continuation of breastfeeding.

• Encourage local universities to adopt Baby Friendly best practice standards as a routine part of their educational programmes for midwives and health visitors.

• Develop a relevant local campaign to increase support for breastfeeding among the wider population.

• Develop programmes which support mothers to feel confident to breastfeed in public.

• Develop programmes which support women to return to work and continue breastfeeding.

• Adapted from The UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative – Developing a breastfeeding strategy