Southwest Mississippi Perseveres to Be Re-Designated Baby-Friendly

Angela Parker and Kim Pace have worked together in Maternity Services at Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in McComb, Mississippi, for almost as long as either can remember.

Kim has been there the longest. She joined as a staff nurse in 1993 and is now the Nurse Manager of Maternity Services.

Angela joined the team as a nursing assistant in 2007, planning to use the breastfeeding counseling skills she acquired in her previous job in a Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program for the Mississippi State Department of Health. Soon thereafter, she became a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) and the driving force behind the facility’s pursuit of Baby-Friendly designation.

Southwest began their Baby-Friendly journey around 2015 when Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi encouraged all hospitals in the state to become designated as part of a statewide quality improvement initiative. Support from the CHAMPS/CHEERS Equity program helped them get across the finish line to achieve designation.

“Achieving designation was a wonderful accomplishment because we worked so hard to get there,” remembers Angela. “Prior to designation, babies were first accessed on the radiant warmer, swaddled for warmth, held by parents and visiting family, and then removed from the mother’s room to be bathed and fed in the well-baby nursery. Rooming in didn’t happen unless it was included in a birth plan. At discharge, all new families took home a complimentary baby bag containing infant formula. These had been our norms for a very long time.”

“To think where we were then and where we are now,” she continues. “Changing these norms was a huge adjustment but the transformation was the best thing for our hospital and the best thing for our patients.”

“We worked so hard and we felt very proud of what we had done,” says Kim. “It was such a relief when we got designated.”

The facility achieved designation in December 2019. Noting that date, discerning readers can probably guess what happened next: they were barely able to settle into their new way of being when COVID hit.

“All of a sudden, we were in a global pandemic,” recalls Angela. “There was a lot of fear. Initially, we were informed that moms and babies may not be able to stay in the same room and that breastfeeding may be contraindicated. We had transformed into a new normal focused on bonding and togetherness and suddenly we were facing a whole new reality.”

The upheaval from COVID brought them to a point where, when things finally settled down, there were fleeting moments when they were unsure if they would move forward with re-designation.

But the practices were fully rooted by this point, and they didn’t want to lose them.

“Our new norms were in place by this point,” says Angela. “Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center is a Baby-Friendly facility.”

“Ultimately, we saw great value in the designation,” says Kim. “We’d come too far to just let it all fall by the wayside. When you’re not held to a certain standard, you tend to let things fall back. I welcome the accountability. It keeps us on our toes.”

So, Angela and Kim set their sights on re-designation. To their delight, BFUSA provided some accommodation in the form of extra time to go through the process.

“Mississippi has some of the worst maternal and infant outcomes in the country,” says Kim. “I think we need to try to do everything we can to try to help our moms and babies. Baby-Friendly practices are a big piece of that.”

The staff was thrilled to be re-designated for another five years in September 2025.

“Being designated and then re-designated was an overall full team effort. Everyone had to do the hard work together,” reflects Angela. “We relish the opportunities to provide mothers with the information, confidence and skills necessary to successfully make informed decisions on how to best bond and provide nutrition to their babies with the special recognition as a Baby-Friendly designated hospital.”

When asked which was more rewarding, their original designation or their re-designation, Angela replied with characteristic modesty:

“They were equally rewarding. This time, we had a different set of challenges. In the beginning, it was brand-new and an overall practice and learning process. It was sort of like digging the ground for the first time, waiting to see what grows from it. And this is what grew from it.”