Ann Brownlee Sykora, BFHI Pioneer, Steps Down from BFUSA Board
After 13 years as a member of BFUSA’s Board of Directors — two of them as Board Chair — Ann Brownlee Sykora, PhD, is stepping away from her governance role at the end of this year.
Ann’s contribution to BFUSA and the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) cannot be understated. Her involvement began long before BFUSA was even established.
Ann describes her career trajectory broadly as “working collaboratively with people in primary health care to develop tools they could use to assess the effectiveness of their programs and determine what they needed to do to improve.”
After completing her PhD at Boston University and working for 8 years with Boston University on WHO’s 20-country program to strengthen health delivery in Africa, Ann had her first child. She moved back to San Diego and worked part time as a consultant, including the completion of a series of health services research courses WHO wanted to promote for use worldwide.
When she was ready to go back to work full-time, Ann met Audrey Naylor, MD, Director of Wellstart International, a WHO Collaborating Center based just a mile from her childhood home that provided local breastfeeding support and trained doctors and nurses from around the world in lactation management. She joined the organization as its Senior Technical Advisor, not long before the WHO and UNICEF launched the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI). Dr. Naylor was asked to help develop the Global Criteria for assessing the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, which served as the basis of the BFHI. When the BFHI was officially initiated in 1991, Wellstart was hired to develop the assessment and training materials.
“I happened to be there at the right time, just at the beginning when the WHO and UNICEF were launching the program,” Ann recalls.
Relying on her expertise in research and evaluation, Ann led the development and field testing of the BFHI assessment tools. In early 1992, breastfeeding experts from around the world participated in a “Master Trainers and Assessors Workshop” in San Diego to launch the Initiative. Within a couple of months, these leaders began launching programs in their own countries with support from UNICEF and WHO. At the request of country BFHI coordinators, Ann provided consulting support in the Philippines, China, Thailand, India, Myanmar, Madagascar, Nepal, Syria, South Africa, Poland, Bolivia, and elsewhere, and also worked to develop and assist with a 5-year Wellstart/Ministry of Health breastfeeding project in Egypt.
When Wellstart was eventually asked to lead the development of the BFHI in the United States, Ann created the U.S. Baby-Friendly assessment tool, field testing it at Evergreen Hospital in Washington State, which became the country’s first Baby-Friendly designated hospital in 1996. After Wellstart passed the leadership of the U.S. initiative over to the newly formed Baby-Friendly USA, Ann continued to help countries throughout the world strengthen their national BFHI programs, spearheaded the updating of the BFHI assessment tools, and collaborated with WHO on development of global tools for assessing national infant and young child feeding programs and BFHI courses for monitors and decision-makers.
“I feel very blessed that I’ve been able to do work that I really care about by working collaboratively with people on the ground all over the world,” says Ann. “Sometimes international work is marked by experts coming in to tell people what they should do, but I didn’t want to work that way. I gravitated towards work that was more participatory.”
When Ann finally retired in 2012, Dr. Naylor, who was then serving on BFUSA’s Board of Directors, suggested that Ann join the Board. She joined in 2013, served as Vice Chair and Chair, led the Accreditation Committee, and served as a member of the Clinical Committee. She also headed BFUSA’s NICU Committee, where she coordinated with a working group and consultant to develop a guide to recommended practice in the NICU.
Earlier this year, Ann decided, with some regret, that 2025 would be her last year serving on the Board. She assures us that Baby-Friendly will remain close to her heart and that she will continue to assist with our national program when needed.
“It’s time for me to focus on some other things,” says Ann. “It was a privilege to have the opportunity to work with so many wonderful, committed Board and staff members at BFUSA, and to hopefully make a real difference in the lives of mothers, babies and families. Baby Friendly has endured because of the passion and dedication of the many amazing people who have worked so hard on it over the years. I’m grateful to have been a part of the journey.”
“Words cannot express how much we have appreciated Ann’s expertise, support, and guidance over these many years,” says BFUSA’s CEO, Eileen FitzPatrick. “As BFUSA celebrates its 30th anniversary, we applaud Ann for her impact on countless lives all over the world and for leaving us with a legacy that will continue to reverberate for decades to come.”
