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The Breastfeeding Committee for Canada (BCC)

The Breastfeeding Committee for Canada has provided extensive groundwork in promoting breastfeeding and the Baby Friendly Initiative™ across Canada. Many resources are available to the provincial authorities for use in meeting specific provincial goals. Other provinces may have similar goals have shared strategies they have found to be useful in meeting those goals. The Provincial/Territorial (P/T) Committee, a sub committee of the BCC, shares and provides information between the various groups.


The Canadian Baby-Friendly™ Initiative

In Canada the Baby-Friendly™ Initiative provides a wonderful opportunity for hospitals and communities to ensure best practice which will enable families to sustain breastfeeding. The BFI ensures that informed feeding decisions are supported by appropriate regional policies and practice guidelines in order to impact positively on duration rates of breastfeeding. The provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick have mandated the implementation of BFI. Canada currently has six facilities designated.


It has been shown that the Initiative:

bulletempowers families and increases client satisfaction
bulletpromotes health by increasing duration rates of breastfeeding
bulletsaves money
bulletensures 'professional best practice' which addresses quality assurance
bulletpromotes ethical care and eliminates areas of conflict of interest
bulletimproves staff recruitment and retention

The Breastfeeding Committee for Canada (BCC) identified the WHO/UNICEF BFI as a primary strategy for the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding. The WHO/UNICEF global guidelines for the BFI, state that each country must identify a BFI National Authority to facilitate the assessment and monitoring of the progress of BFI within its borders. The Breastfeeding Committee for Canada is the National Authority for the BFI and will implement the BFI in partnership with the respective Provincial and Territorial Implementation BFI Committees. In Alberta this committee is the ABC.

The ABC has joined other provincial/territorial committees (Quebec, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Yukon, & Northwest Territories) which have been struck to work with the Breastfeeding Committee of Canada to implement the Baby Friendly™ Initiative in their areas. The committees in Quebec, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Manitoba are the designated provincial committees for implementing the Baby Friendly Initiative™ (BFI) in their province where education and strategies around the BFI are being implemented at the regional and local levels.


Hospitals and Maternity Facilities


The BFI protects, promotes and supports breastfeeding through the Ten Steps to Successful Breast-feeding developed by UNICEF and the World Health Organization.


In order to achieve Baby-Friendly™ designation, all providers in every hospital and maternity facility will:

  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 and management of breastfeeding.
  4. Help mothers to 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 breast milk, 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.


Community Health Centres

In order to achieve Baby-Friendly™ designation, all providers of community health care in every Community Health Centre will:

  1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
  2. Train all staff involved in the care of mothers and babies in the skills necessary to implement the policy.
  3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
  4. Support mothers to initiate and maintain breastfeeding.
  5. Encourage exclusive and continued breastfeeding, with appropriately-timed introduction of complementary foods.
  6. Provide a welcoming atmosphere for breastfeeding families.
  7. Promote co-operation between health care staff, breastfeeding support groups and the local community.


A Seven Point Plan for the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding in Community Health Care Settings (click here to view this document)


This resource aims to provide current and relevant information to assist community health services to prepare for the Baby-Friendly™ assessment and designation process.

All Baby-Friendly™ facilities adhere to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent WHA Resolutions. The Code seeks to protect breastfeeding by ensuring the ethical marketing of breastmilk substitutes by industry.


What is the significance of a Baby- Friendly Community?

In Canada, the name of the BFHI has been adapted to the Baby-Friendly™ Initiative (BFI) to reflect the continuum of care for breastfeeding mothers and babies outside of the hospital environment. With a Baby-Friendly™ hospital and community behind her, a mother will have the support she needs from the whole community to ensure her child’s full, healthy development.

A baby- friendly community is one in which mothers are encouraged and supported in their desire to breastfeed; where women are provided with the maternity rights to which they are entitled; and where the commercial promotion of breastmilk substitutes and the bottle feeding culture are challenged.

A Baby-Friendly™ environment is one in which working conditions for women reflect the mother’s role in family and community health and development. It is an environment in which the value of the time and energy women spend on breastfeeding and all the other responsibilities of child health care are acknowledged as an essential, life-sustaining contribution to her family, community and society.

 

What is the progress of the Baby-Friendly™ Hospital Initiative in Canada?

As of March 31, 2007 in Canada:


Baby-Friendly™ Hospitals and Birthing Centres in Canada

  1. Brome Missisquoi Perkins, Cowansville, Quebec - 1999; reassessed and confirmed designation Nov 2004
  2. St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton, Ontario –March 2003
  3. Centre Hospitaleur Saint Eustache, Saint Eustache, Quebec, June, 2004
  4. La Maison de Naissance Mimosa in Saint Romuald QC, January 2005, the first birthing centre in Canada to receive the Baby-Friendly™ designation
     

Baby-Friendly™ Community Health Services in Canada

  1. CLSC d’Argenteuil in Lachute QC is Canada’s First designated Community Health Service. Nov. 2004
  2. Mission communautaire du Centre de santé et des services sociaux La Pommeraie is the second community health service in Québec, November 2005
  3. CLSC Samuel de Champlain, December 2006
  4. CLSC des Patriotes in Montérégie QC, February 2007
  5. CLSC  de la Haute-Yamaska  in Granby QC, March 2007

Canadian BFI Documents: 

BFI Assessment Process and Costs: a description of the Baby-Friendly Journey - PDF

BFI Assessment Flowchart: an Overview of the BFI Process - PDF

 
Calculation of Exclusive Breastfeeding Statistics: Hospitals & Birthing Centres - PDF

The Baby-Friendly™ Initiative in Community Health Services: A Canadian Implementation Guide   PDF

Implementation Guide Order Form   PDF

BFI Hospital Self Appraisal Tool (To be used in conjunction with the BCC BFI Practice Outcome Indicators for Hospitals posted on this website)   PDF


BCC BFI Practice Outcomes Indicators for Hospitals and Community Health Services:

Part 1 : Guiding Assumptions   PDF  


Part 2: The Ten Steps and Practice Outcome Indicators for Baby-Friendly™ Hospitals   PDF   


Part 3: The Seven Point Plan and Practice Outcome Indicators For The Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding in Community Health Services (CHS)   PDF   


Part 4: Checklists and Appendices   PDF
Instruction on the use of infant formula in Baby-Friendly™ Hospitals
Join the many Canadians who are working to establish breastfeeding as the biological and cultural norm for infant feeding in Canada.
 

   
Links in this document are intended to serve as a reference list of resources on breastfeeding.
The ABC does not endorse any product, web page or resource materials with the exception of all of the
WHO and UNICEF Global Initiatives, the Baby Friendly™ Initiative, Innocenti Declaration 
the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent WHA Resolutions,
and the national documents from the Breastfeeding Committee for Canada.

Send email to webmaster@breastfeedingalberta.ca with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2009 Alberta Breastfeeding Committee
Last modified: 02/26/09