At the start of World Breastfeeding Week, Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative launched a new set of resources: recommended learning outcomes for several health professional groups.
It had been announced at the Baby Friendly conference in 2018 that learning outcomes and resources were being produced.
Addressing gaps
The WBTi report in 2016 (see Indicator 5 in Part 1 of the WBTi UK report for the above table, and Indicator 5 in Part 2 for the detailed findings for each UK health profession) showed that for most health professions in the UK, the coverage of infant feeding in pre-registration training was inadequate. In some case only broad standards are given and the individual universities develop their own curricula.
The infant feeding learning outcomes launched by BFI are for a range of newly qualified health professionals so they ‘articulate the minimum knowledge and understanding of infant feeding that it would be reasonable to expect from a health practitioner at the point of qualification’. There are slightly different ones for the following five groups:
- doctors
- dietitians
- pharmacists
- children’s nurses
- maternity support workers/nursery nurses.
For each of these professional groups the learning outcomes are grouped into three broad themes:
- The value of human milk and breastfeeding.
- Supporting infant feeding.
- Infant feeding in context, which includes understanding the importance of the International Code.
They are intended as ‘a stimulus to universities and others to start to consider what should be covered in relevant curricula and training, and then to take action to make that a reality.’
One useful recommendation is that ‘A mapping exercise can help the university to assess how far the topics are already covered and assessed in the curriculum, and to identify and plan for any additions to modules or design alternations needed.’ Plans for the resources ‘include a slide pack to help lecturers deliver the content to students, e-learning for students and assessment examples’.
Specific learning outcomes like these, provided they are taken on board by the training institutions, will surely help to achieve a higher and consistent level of knowledge and skills within and between health professions.
Cover photo licensed by Adobe Stock
Breastfeeding trends (UK) 