Abstract
Breastfeeding is now widely recognized as a vital obesity prevention strategy and hospitals play a primary role in promoting, supporting and helping mothers to initiate and maintain breastfeeding. The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) provides an evidence-based model that hospitals can use to plan and implement breastfeeding quality improvement (QI) projects. Funding under Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW), administered by the CDC, brought together key Chicago partners to provide individualized support and technical assistance with breastfeeding QI projects to the 19 maternity hospitals in Chicago. A community organizing approach was taken to mobilize hospital interest in breastfeeding QI projects, leading to successes, e.g. 12/19 (63 %) Chicago hospitals registered with Baby-Friendly USA, Inc. (BFUSA) to pursue official Baby-Friendly designation. Key factors that fostered this success included: involving all levels of hospital staff, financial incentives, and ongoing tailored technical assistance. To assist other communities in similar work, this article discusses the approach the project took to mobilize hospitals to improve breastfeeding support practices based on the BFHI, as well as successes and lessons learned.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1712-1717 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Maternal and child health journal |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2013 |
Funding
The goal of Chicago’s Healthy Places breastfeeding project is to support all maternity hospitals in Chicago to increase institutional support for breastfeeding. Healthy Places is a partnership between the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC; www.clocc.net ). Healthy Places is funded under the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, through the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) initiative. CPPW is administered by the CDC and supports 50 US communities to reduce chronic diseases related to obesity and tobacco use through policy, systems, and environmental change []. Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC) [, ], a program of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, partnered with CDPH as its bona fide agent to manage the City of Chicago’s CPPW award. This article was supported by Healthy Places, an initiative of Healthy Chicago. Healthy Places is a collaborative effort between the Chicago Department of Public Health and the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Communities Putting Prevention to Work initiative, Cooperative Agreement Number 1U58DP002376‐01. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Keywords
- Baby-Friendly
- Breastfeeding
- CPPW
- Community organizing
- Quality improvement
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Epidemiology
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
