Just one in ten babies in England is born in a hospital that adequately promotes breastfeeding, Unicef has found.
Overstretched maternity units are not achieving the Unicef Baby Friendly accreditation which sets standards for helping women to feed their babies naturally.
Guidance was issued by the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) two years ago saying all maternity units should work towards achieving the award but England still lags behind other UK countries and much of Europe. Only 26 maternity units out of 238 have the full Baby Friendly Award, around 11 per cent in England.
To achieve the award hospitals must implement ten different steps such as ensuring all expectant mothers have information about the benefits of breastfeeding, making sure mothers and babies have skin to skin contact as soon as possible after delivery to help bonding and helping to initiate breastfeeding. The Baby Friendly Initiative takes a ‘no blame’ approach with mother’s giving information to make their own choice without pressure to breastfeed. The hospitals must also comply with international guidance that bans the promotion of bottle feed formula and that they do not sell formula on site.
Last month the Royal College of Midwives and the Department of Health launched a free DVD for all pregnant women giving information about breastfeeding.
