Collaboration, QI Helping to Bring Better Breastfeeding Support to Hospitals

Better breastfeeding support and education are priorities for many states around the country. Hospitals and care providers are adapting their practices, but they often require help in achieving meaningful and sustainable change.

This is in part because there are long established protocols that are difficult to amend or replace. However, collaborative learning and quality improvement (QI) practices have helped many facilities coordinate their efforts and implement strategies that lead to a higher level of care and support for families.

Two NICHQ-led breastfeeding initiatives, Best Fed Beginnings and the Texas Ten Step Star Achiever Breastfeeding Learning Collaborative, have empowered healthcare providers to test changes and identify solutions for improving breastfeeding practices within their hospitals. The ultimate goal of both initiatives has been to create supportive environments for women’s breastfeeding choices and increase exclusive breastfeeding rates.

Both projects were recently featured in two articles, one from Reuters Health (via Consultant360) and the other from Medscape. The first article shares some insights into Best Fed Beginnings, including a look at some of the results from one of the participating hospitals. The second article discusses the growing momentum behind hospitals working to obtain Baby-Friendly status and improve their breastfeeding practices.

We encourage you to read about the success of these efforts to increase breastfeeding rates and reach out to NICHQ if your hospital or state is interested in getting support to do the same.