Baby Friendly Health Initiative

Protecting, Promoting and Supporting Breastfeeding in Australia


The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding

  1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff
  2. Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy
  3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding
  4. Place babies in skin-to-skin contact with their mothers immediately following birth for at least an hour and encourage mothers to recognise when their babies are ready to breastfeed, offering help if needed.
  5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants
  6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breastmilk, unless medically indicated
  7. Practice rooming-in, allow mothers and infants to remain together-24 hours a day
  8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand
  9. Give no artificial teats or dummies to breastfeeding infants
  10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support and refer mothers on discharge from the facility.

Ten Steps In Other Languages

 
Arabic as PDF
 
Dutch as PDF
 
French as PDF
 
German as PDF
 
Hindi as PDF
 
Italian as PDF
 
Indonesian as PDF
 
Macedonian as PDF
 
Japan as PDF
 
Mandarin PDF
 
Korean as PDF
 
Russian as PDf
 
Spanish as PDF
 
Thai as PDF
 
Turkish as PDF
 
Vietnamese as PDF
   
 
 
PO Box 87 Deakin West ACT 2600 Ph 02 6230 7333 Fax 02 6230 6033 Email bfhi@midwives.org.au