Women Need Support to Start and Continue Breastfeeding

Mothers across Nova Scotia need more support and encouragement so they will choose breastfeeding and, more importantly, will stay with it.

This new policy will put that support in place. Health Minister Angus MacIsaac announced the policy at the Mi'kmaq Child Development Centre on Oct 5, 2005. The policy was developed jointly by the Department of Health and Nova Scotia Health Promotion. The policy is outlined below.

Nova Scotia's Breastfeeding Policy

Responsibilities of the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Nova Scotia Health Promotion

The Department of Health and Nova Scotia Health Promotion hold a firm and unequivocal position in favour of breastfeeding and communicates its position both within government, the health system, to health system providers as well as the general population. Such an affirmation provides a fundamental point of reference for all provincial government and health system funded practitioners and staff.

Priority measures

• State its position on breastfeeding, consistent with “Healthy Babies, Healthy Families: Postpartum and Postnatal Guidelines” and the Public Health Services: Infant Feeding Position Statement, and make it known and applied at every level within the health system. To this end, the Department of Health and Nova Scotia Health Promotion, will, in part, through the Provincial Breastfeeding and Baby-Friendly Initiative Committee:
• appoint a person to coordinate breastfeeding and the Baby-Friendly Initiative at the provincial level;
• integrate breastfeeding into all government programs relating to child health;
• ensure that information on breastfeeding and infant feeding is standardized and updated in provincial documents or services to which parents and professionals refer (i.e. A New Life, Breastfeeding Basics, Year One Food for Baby, After Year One Food for Children, etc.);
• include and maintain information on breastfeeding, including the position of the Department of Health and Nova Scotia Health Promotion, to its website;
• ensure the development and use of standardized infant feeding assessment and care planning tools by providers throughout the health system.

• Put in place the conditions (time, space and support) necessary to facilitate breastfeeding among employees of the Department of Health and Nova Scotia Health Promotion and work to ensure the same across government.

• Ensure that social policies (interdepartmental and cross-sectoral) that promote breastfeeding are maintained and improved.

• Establish a breastfeeding social marketing strategy aimed at the general population.

• Promote the implementation of the Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI) through a provincial committee (Provincial Breastfeeding and BFI Committee). The following are included within the mandate of the committee:
• provide leadership for the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding;
• support the implementation of the Baby-Friendly Initiative within Nova Scotia, in partnership with the Breastfeeding Committee of Canada (BCC), the National Authority for the Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI);
• make known the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and the Seven Step Plan for the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding in Community Health to health system funded organizations and agencies;
• distribute to health system funded facility and organization administrators appropriate information concerning programs aimed at protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding (e.g. BFI);
• assume responsibility, in collaboration with the organizations concerned (e.g. WHO, UNICEF, the Breastfeeding Committee for Canada, etc.), for the certification of baby-friendly facilities and for recommendations made to the Department of Health and Nova Scotia Health Promotion for the granting of the designation;
• build commitment throughout the province for breastfeeding and to implement the BFI so that breastfeeding will be the cultural norm for infant feeding in Nova Scotia.

• Encourage the application of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, which implies:
• Include in policy relating to ministerial publications, both written and audiovisual, the obligation to respect the Code, while emphasizing that breastfeeding is the normal method of infant feeding. Images representing bottle-feeding, baby bottles, nipples or commercial infant feeding formula (artificial milk) should not be used unless absolutely necessary;
• Ensure that policies relating to government publications are respected, and using influence on other Departments to ensure that the Code is respected.

• With the Provincial Committee and the District Health Authorities/IWK Health Centre, support the implementation of tools e.g. infant feeding/nutrition assessment & care planning tool (under development) and activities, such as, individual breastfeeding support, community capacity building e.g. peer support groups, local coalitions/networks, by DHAs and other health system funded organizations and agencies.

• With the Provincial Committee, encourage all professional bodies to ensure that universities, community and vocational colleges offer students who will be future health professionals, adequate theoretical and practical training in the area of breastfeeding.

• Ensure the development and implementation of a provincial breastfeeding surveillance system using standardized definitions and timelines (initiation and duration) developed and approved by the Breastfeeding Committee for Canada. [Consistent with “Healthy Babies, Healthy Families” infant feeding and growth (i.e. height and weight) should be monitored at 3-7 days of age, ten to fourteen days of age and at one month.]

• Regularly monitor progress towards achievement of the BFI in Hospitals and Community Health Services across the province.

Adapted from:Breastfeeding in Quebec: Guidelines
Le Ministére de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec