Supporting your facility to achieve the highest standard in infant feeding care

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Baby-Friendly USA —
The national authority for the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative

Baby-Friendly Designation: A transformative journey to becoming a community leader in optimal infant feeding.

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Benefits of Designation

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Baby-Friendly Designation:
The proven approach to improving breastfeeding outcomes

Baby-Friendly facilities have higher rates of initiation, exclusivity, and duration of breastfeeding

(* initiation rate in 2024)

Baby-Friendly facilities provide more equitable care, reducing health disparities

Baby-Friendly fills gaps in pre-service training, so staff can provide the highest standard of care

What’s New

It Takes a Village: Sutter Santa Rosa’s Collaborative Path to Baby-Friendly

BFUSA Celebrates Larry Gartner, MD, Founding Board Member

Premier Birth Center on a Mission to Become Baby-Friendly Designated—and to Bring Others Along

BFUSA is with you all the way

BFUSA’s expert staff is there to guide you through your Baby-Friendly designation journey—and our clear four-step framework breaks the process down into manageable pieces.

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1. Discovery

Complete your registration, understand what Baby-Friendly designation means, and find out what the journey requires.

2. Development

Commit to the process and use BFUSA’s online toolkit to create and submit your plan for meeting Baby-Friendly guidelines.

3. Dissemination

Put your plan into action and continue quality improvement until all required Baby-Friendly standards are met.

4. Designation

Confirm your readiness with BFUSA in a review call, then schedule your on-site assessment to complete the designation journey.

“Breastfeeding skills are not something we focus on in medical school. After [BFHI] training, I am giving more advice about positioning and latch, and spending more time with mom trying to help out.”

Madison Archer, MD

“Our Baby-Friendly designation is something we take great pride in. We wanted to send a strong message to our community that we support breastfeeding and safe infant feeding practices. That’s who we are, and that’s what we want to be known for.”

Debbie Gordon, MSN, RN, IBCLC — UNC Hospitals

“BFUSA put out a publication that focused on three things: safety first, informed decisions, and caring conversations. We follow those three principles in everything we do. These principles help us support health equity in an area of the state with deep poverty, high unemployment and poor health outcomes.”

Laura Emery, RN, BSN —NVRH

“The BFHI is considered the gold standard of evidence-based policy for maternity facilities.”

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine

“The recent formula crisis and the water crises in Jackson, Flint, and elsewhere highlight how systemic racism, exploitative marketing practices, and accelerating impacts of climate change make the US infant feeding system vulnerable and perpetuate inequities. Greater investment in policies that enable breastfeeding for all and protect it from exploitative marketing practices is needed to create a more resilient and equitable first food system.”

Cecília Tomori - Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and Bloomberg School of Public Health

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative is endorsed by organizations worldwide, including: