Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), also known as Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI), is a worldwide programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), launched in 1992 in India [1][2] following the adoption of the Innocenti Declaration on breastfeeding promotion in 1990.[3] The initiative is a global effort for improving the role of maternity services to enable mothers to breastfeed babies for the best start in life. It aims at improving the care of pregnant women, mothers and newborns at health facilities that provide maternity services for protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding, in accordance with the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.[4]

  1. ^ UNICEF. The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. Archived 11 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 4 August 2011.
  2. ^ World Health Organization. Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative. Archived 23 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 4 August 2011.
  3. ^ UNICEF. Innocenti Declaration on the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding. Archived 2 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine Adopted at the WHO/UNICEF meeting on "Breastfeeding in the 1990s: A Global Initiative", held at the Spedale degli Innocenti, Florence, Italy, 30 July-1 August 1990.
  4. ^ "Breastfeeding Initiation at BFI Hospitals". Sacred Heart University. 2 February 2015. Archived from the original on 17 September 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2016.