04/09/2015 - Permalink

Baby-Friendly Award for Shropshire

Related topics: Community / Health

baby-friendly award v2 - sep 2015

Shropshire Council’s Sure Start children’s centres team and Shropshire Community Health Trust’s Health Visiting Team have been awarded the prestigious Baby-Friendly Award for the high standard of care given to pregnant women, mothers and their babies.

The teams are the latest UK health care services to win international recognition from Unicef. The Baby-Friendly initiative, set up by Unicef and the World Health Organisation, is a global programme which provides a practical and effective way for health services to improve the care provided for all mothers and babies.

In the UK, the initiative works with public services to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding and responsive bottle feeding, as well as to strengthen mother-baby and family relationships. Support for these relationships is important for all babies, not only those who are breastfed.

The award is given to health facilities, hospitals, universities, community settings after an assessment by a Unicef team has shown that recognised best practice standards are in place.

Karen Calder, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for health, and Chair of Shropshire’s Health and Well-being Board, added:

“Breastfeeding protects babies against a wide range of serious illnesses, including gastroenteritis and respiratory infections in infancy as well as asthma, cardiovascular disease and diabetes in later life. We also know that breastfeeding reduces the mother’s risk of some cancers. Baby-Friendly accreditation helps us to ensure that parents have access to the support they require and can make informed choices about feeding their baby.”

Anne-Marie Speke, Shropshire Council’s healthy child programme co-ordinator, added:

“We decided to join forces with Unicef UK’s Baby-Friendly initiative to try to help increase breastfeeding rates and to improve care for all mothers and their babies in both the health visiting and children’s centre services.

“However a mother chooses to feed her baby, she can be sure that she will be supported to form a strong loving relationship with her newborn.”

Yvonne Gough, Health Visitor Manager at Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, said:

“We are committed to helping parents make an informed choice about how to feed their babies, and this award is an important milestone and something we have been working hard to achieve. We want to make sure that parents receive high-quality support and information at all times, and working in partnership with children’s centres enables us to do this effectively.”

Sue Ashmore, Baby-Friendly initiative programme director, said:

“We are delighted that Shropshire Council’s Sure Start children’s centres and Shropshire Community Health Trust’s Health Visiting Team have achieved full Baby-Friendly status.”

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