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.

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.

An Investment Framework for Nutrition: Reaching the Global Targets for Stunting, Anemia, Breastfeeding, and Wasting estimates the costs, impacts, and financing scenarios to achieve the World Health Assembly global nutrition targets for stunting, anemia in women, exclusive breastfeeding and the scaling up of the treatment of severe wasting among young children. To reach these four targets, the world needs US$70 billion over 10 years to invest in high-impact nutrition-specific interventions. This investment would have enormous benefits: 65 million cases of stunting and 265 million cases of anemia in women would be prevented in 2025 as compared with the 2015 baseline. In addition, at least 91 million more children would be treated for severe wasting and 105 million additional babies would be exclusively breastfed during the first six months of life over 10 years. Altogether, achieving these targets would avert at least 3.7 million child deaths. Every dollar invested in this package of interventions would yield between US$4 and US$35 in economic returns, making investing in early nutrition one of the best value-for-money development actions. Although some of the targets—especially those for reducing stunting in children and anemia in women—are ambitious and will require concerted efforts in financing, scale-up, and sustained commitment, recent experience from several countries suggests that meeting these targets is feasible. These investments in the critical 1000-day window of early childhood are inalienable and portable and will pay lifelong dividends—not only for children directly affected but also for us all in the form of more robust societies—that will drive future economies.

The Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is a global effort launched by WHO and UNICEF to implement practices that protect, promote and support breastfeeding. It was launched in 1991 in response to the Innocenti Declaration. The global BFHI materials have been revised, updated and expanded for integrated care. The materials reflect new research and experience, reinforce the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, support mothers who are not breastfeeding, provide modules on HIV and infant feeding and mother-friendly care, and give more guidance for monitoring and reassessment.

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.

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.