10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding

 Every facility providing maternity services and care for newborn infants should:

1.     Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff. 

2.     Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy. 

3.     Inform all pregnant women about the benefits andmanagement of breastfeeding.

4.     Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within a half-hour of birth. 

5.     Show mothers how to breastfeed, and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants. 

6.     Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breastmilk, unless medically indicated.

7.     Practice rooming-in -- allow mothers and infants to remain together -- 24 hours a day. 

8.     Encourage breastfeeding on demand. 

9.     Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants. 

10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.

The “Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding” are the foundation of the WHO/UNICEF Baby

Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI). They summarize the maternity practices necessary to

support breastfeeding. The purpose of this document is to review the evidence for the efficacy

of the ‘Ten Steps’, and to provide a tool for both advocacy and education. It is hoped that

policies and practices in future will be based on research rather than on conjecture and custom

(Inch & Garforth, 1989).