Supporting Evidence: Maternity Care Practices
CDC calculates mPINC scores for participating hospitals to indicate their overall level of maternity care practices and policies that support optimal infant feeding. Scoring of practices and policies is consistent with recommendations from national and international experts in infant feeding within maternity care settings and supported by evidence from peer-reviewed research.
Maternity Care Practices Supportive of Breastfeeding
Rationale
- Results from systematic reviews and meta-analyses show that maternity care practices supportive of breastfeeding, as demonstrated by adherence to the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative’s Ten Steps for Successful Breastfeeding (Ten Steps), are associated with improved breastfeeding outcomes. The Ten Steps are associated with improved breastfeeding initiation, breastfeeding exclusivity, and breastfeeding duration.1-4
- Results also show a dose response relationship between the number of Baby-Friendly practices experienced and the likelihood for improved breastfeeding outcomes, indicating that the probability of improving breastfeeding outcomes increases with a mother and infant from exposure to the Ten Steps initiative.1
- Baby-Friendly practices may also help to decrease racial and ethnic inequities in breastfeeding outcomes.5
- Adherence to the Ten Steps may not significantly increase hospital birth costs.6,7
Reference List
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