During World Breastfeeding Week #WBW2019, we are hosting a series of guest blogs exploring how the wider team of health professionals and community breastfeeding support can support breastfeeding families. The WBTi Report found numerous gaps in health professional training in infant feeding, and we are delighted to see a terrific range of resources being developed to address this.
For details of gaps in health professional training, see “Indicator 5” in Part 1 of the WBTi Report for the summary table above and in Part 2 for the detailed findings on each health profession.
Following on from previous blogs about the launch of the Hospital Infant Feeding Network website and the “Don’t Say Stop Look it Up” campaign, today’s blog looks at another set of resources provided by the Hospital Infant Feeding Network.
As a reminder, the Hospital Infant Feeding Network is a place for hospital health professionals to find out more about facilitating and supporting breastfeeding in a hospital setting. It provides a highly referenced, practical website on relevant topics, and a closed Facebook group for discussion and sharing best practice. For National Breastfeeding Celebration weeks in June, HIFN produced a set of A3 posters aimed at hospital staff in different settings to summarise useful, evidence-based information. These can be downloaded here.
The first two posters look at the reasons for health professionals to support breastfeeding, in term babies and in the neonatal unit setting. Families who are finding breastfeeding difficult are unlikely to find this type of messaging useful so it is important that these are placed to be staff-facing only.
The next three posters look at what is normal, common breastfeeding problems and the non-nutritional aspects of breastfeeding:
The final poster is designed for hospital settings where lactating women might be seen or admitted:
More information about all of these topics is available on the HIFN website.
Ilana Levene is a paediatric doctor planning to sub-specialise in neonatal medicine and interested in research relating to neonatal nutrition. She lives in Oxford with her husband, an environmental consultant, and two children. She is a trustee of Oxfordshire Breastfeeding Support, a local grassroots network of free weekly breastfeeding drop-ins and online support. She likes cross-stitching and making patchwork quilts.
Breastfeeding trends (UK) 