Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative

Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative

Subject – Governance

Context – Private hospitals to be tagged for being breast-feeding-­friendly

Concept –

• A new initiative will now help mothers identify “breast-feeding¬-friendly” hospitals before they give birth.
• The Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI), in collaboration with the Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI), which comprises more than 12,000 private hospitals, has launched an accreditation programme that will enable hospitals to get a “breastfeeding-friendly” tag. This programme is called “Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI)”.
• The initiative is only for private hospitals and is based on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s MAA programme for government hospitals launched in 2016.
• The certification process involves two stages — the first stage includes self-assessment by a hospital, followed by an external assessment by an authorised appraiser who interviews doctors, nurses and patients as well as reviews different practices and training of staff.
• The accreditation process costs ₹17,000 per hospital.
• Provision of mother’s breast milk to infants within one hour of birth ensures that the infant receives the colostrum, or “first milk”, which is rich in protective factors, according to the WHO.
• Lack of support and counselling for expectant mothers during pregnancy and at birth as well as aggressive promotion of baby foods are the reasons for poor early breastfeeding rates.
• A rise in caesarean sections is also known to negatively impact breastfeeding rates.During caesarean operations everyone is focused on recovery, wound surgery, infection control and breastfeeding within the golden hour is missed.
• Evidence shows that improving breastfeeding rates in hospitals reduces neonatal mortality and infant mortality rates.
• The tools for this evaluation process have been developed in partnership with the Health Ministry and World Health Organisation. The BFHI programme is a worldwide programme of the WHO and UNICEF. Though India adopted it in 1993, it fizzled out by 1998 and is now being revived after more than two decades.
• Chennai’s Bloom Healthcare has become the first hospital to be recognised as “breastfeeding-friendly” under this programme.

MAA – “Mother’s Absolute Affection”

• MAA – “Mother’s Absolute Affection” is a nationwide programme of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in an attempt to bring undiluted focus on promotion of breastfeeding and provision of counselling services for supporting breastfeeding through health systems.
• The programme has been named ‘MAA’ to signify the support a lactating mother requires from family members and at health facilities to breastfeed successfully.
• ‘Vatsalya – Maatri Amrit Kosh’, a National Human Milk Bank and Lactation Counselling Centre has been established at the Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC), Delhi. It has been established in collaboration with the Norwegian government, Oslo University and Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI).