1511cf66_all_To_Action_on_Breastfeeding__Topic
[ID] 481 [Interest Areas] Concerned Citizen [Comment] I've never had a baby in a US hospital (thank god) but from what I have heard the situation is absolutely terrible in many, many ways, but especially in terms of establishing breastfeeding. I had my baby in a birth center in the UK where breastfeeding was a top priority of the midwives (I'm American, but was living there for two years for work). The practices they used to help sucessfully establish breastfeeding were as follows: a) Uninterrupted skin to skin contact of baby and mother for at least one full hour immediately following birth. Science tells us that this contact is critical for getting prolactin flowing. In normal circumstances, there is no reason to separate mother and baby immediately after the baby is born. When my baby was born, he was placed on my chest and we were left alone in a quiet place to bond. b) Rooming in. My baby never left my sight after he was born. The baby and my husband slept in our room with me at the birth center. This allowed me to try to feed the baby whenever he cried, and to have my husband there to help me. c) Breastfeeding class. Prior to the birth of the baby, the birth center offered a relaxed afternoon where pregnant women sat down with lactation consultants to learn more about the benefits of breastfeeding and proper techniques. We were also told who we could contact if we needed help once the baby was born and we'd gone home. d)Educated midwives who supported breastfeeding. The midwives who cared for me truly believed in breastfeeding and had been trained extensively on its benefits and techniques. From what I have heard of labor and delivery nurses in the USA, they are at best uneducated about benefits and at worst hostile to breastfeeding. As you know, labor, deliver and post-delivery care in the US in general has many, many problems causing it to be far more expensive and have far worse outcomes than the predominately midwife-led care in almost every other indistrialized nation. While this is a much bigger problem than the task you have set out to do, I believe that the initatives to implement the pro-breastfeeding practices I have enumerated above would go a long way to making US maternity care more humane and produce better results in general, and especially in breastfeeding rates. [Topic] 
Maternal and Infant Care Practices: Prenatal, Hospital, and Post-Delivery Care
Call To Action on Breastfeeding
Topic