Lactation Guidelines
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Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding
Every facility providing maternity services and care for newborn infants should:
- Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
- Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.
- Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
- Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within a half-hour of birth.
- Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants.
- Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk unless medically indicated.
- Practice rooming in - allow mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day.
- Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
- Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.
- Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.
A Joint WHO/UNICEF Statement (1989)
The Innocenti Declaration was signed in Florence, Italy, August 1, 1990. It was produced and adopted to protect, promote and support breastfeeding. The declaration recognizes that breastfeeding:
- Provides ideal nutrition for infants, contributing to their healthy growth and development
- Reduces occurrence of infectious diseases, thus lowering infant mortality
- Contributes to women's health by reducing the risk of breast and ovarian cancer
- Provides social and economic benefits to the family and national health care
