This open access edited book brings together new research on the mechanisms by which maternal and reproductive health policies are formed and implemented in diverse locales around the world, from global policy spaces to sites of practice. The authors – both internationally respected anthropologists and new voices – demonstrate the value of ethnography and the utility of reproduction as a lens through which to generate rich insights into professionals’ and lay people’s intimate encounters with policy. Authors look closely at core policy debates in the history of global maternal health across six different continents, including: Women’s use of misoprostol for abortion in Burkina Faso The place of traditional birth attendants in global maternal health Donor-driven maternal health programs in Tanzania Efforts to integrate qualitative evidence in WHO maternal and child health policy-making Anthropologies of Global Maternal and Reproductive Health will engage readers interested in critical conversations about global health policy today. The broad range of foci makes it a valuable resource for teaching in medical anthropology, anthropology of reproduction, and interdisciplinary global health programs. The book will also find readership amongst critical public health scholars, health policy and systems researchers, and global public health practitioners.

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative is a program designed around the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children09́s Fund09́s (UNICEF) Ten Steps for Successful breastfeeding, which was originally published in 1989. These steps give guidance to facilities who wish to increase breastfeeding rates, with the intent of decreasing infant deaths globally, (WHO, 1998). The importance of breastfeeding has been researched and echoed repeatedly throughout the last several years. Although, UNICEF and WHO are traditionally thought of as international governing bodies, it has been well established that first world countries such as the United States can benefit substantially from these practices. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the authoritative group for pediatricians in the United States, released a position statement in 2012 which concludes that ,0−́given the documented short- and longer-term medical and neurodevelopmental advantages of breastfeeding, infant nutrition should be considered a public health issue and not only a lifestyle choice.0+́ While hospitals can no longer deny they play an important role in the success of breastfeeding, they must also determine how to change a culture that has, for many years, seen breastfeeding as unnecessary. The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is based on the Ten Steps for Successful Breastfeeding and provides guidance and incentives for hospitals to get their policies and procedures in alignment with these steps. Implementation of this program is well researched and has shown great success. This paper analyzes this research and lays out plans for the successful implementation of the BFHI. The implementation analysis includes a description of the current state of breastfeeding in the United States, BFHI as a solution, steps to implementation, tools for evaluating the success of BFHI status as well as a plan for dissemination and a review of relevant literature.

This book sets out the facts and lines of action that enable health services to achieve their full potential as part of society's first line of support to breast-feeding. Against the larger backdrop of community attitudes that variously sustain or restrain breast-feeding the 32-page booklet translates the most up-to-date knowledge and practical experience about lactation into precise recommendations on care for mothers before during and after pregnancy and delivery. The statement begins by listing 10 important steps to successful breast-feeding intended for application in every facility providing maternity services and care for newborn infants. Readers are told that mothers should be helped to breast-feed within a half hour of birth that newborn infants should be given no food or drink other than breast milk unless medically indicated and that rooming-in should be practised 24 hours a day. Particularly practical is a section devoted to individual care, which spells out procedures to follow at five important stages from prenatal history-taking and counseling through care during and after delivery to what to do when a mother is discharged from the health care facility. Readers are informed that the risk of neonatal infection is in fact greater in the closed environment of a nursery than when infants remain with their mothers and that exclusive on-demand breast-feeding should be the norm throughout the clinic or hospital stay. The booklet concludes with a 20-point check-list that maternity wards and clinics can use to gauge how well they are protecting promoting and supporting breast-feeding.

WHO and UNICEF jointly developed this global strategy to focus world attention on the impact that feeding practices have on the nutritional status, growth and development, health, and thus the very survival of infants and young children. The strategy is the result of a comprehensive two-year participatory process. It is based on the evidence of nutrition's significance in the early months and years of life, and of the crucial role that appropriate feeding practices play in achieving optimal health outcomes. The strategy is intended as a guide for action; it identifies interventions with a proven positive impact; it emphasizes providing mothers and families the support they need to carry out their crucial roles, and it explicitly defines the obligations and responsibilities in this regards of governments, international organizations, and other concerned parties.

Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) was launched in 1991 as a global programme to incentivize maternity facilities throughout the world to adhere to the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and comply with the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. This report provides an analysis of the current status of the BFHI in countries around the world. Based on the 2nd Global Nutrition Policy Review, implemented by WHO in 2016-2017, the report presents the implementation of the initiative 25 years after its launch. The report describes programme coverage, the current designation process, reasons for termination in places where the programme has been discontinued, integration of the Ten Steps into other standards and policies, and overall lessons learned. In addition, the report provides qualitative information on some of the challenges countries have faced in implementing the BFHI.