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INTEGRIS Canadian Valley Hospital in Yukon, receives prestigious international recognition as a Baby-Friendly designated birth facility. Baby-Friendly USA is the U.S. authority for the implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The initiative encourages and recognizes hospitals and birthing centers that offer an optimal level of care for mothers and their babies by providing information, confidence, and skills training. This prestigious international award focuses on breastfeeding education and support, safe infant feeding practices and bonding initiatives like skin-to-skin contact.

“Earning Baby-Friendly designation is a great achievement – one that INTEGRIS Canadian Valley Hospital is extremely proud of," says Teresa Gray, president of INTEGRIS Canadian Valley Hospital. "This designation recognizes our journey to excellence in maternity care, specifically encouragement of breastfeeding, and endorses our practice of safe evidenced based, family centered care. We are committed to a healthy future and providing our community the highest level of quality care possible.”

There are more than 20,000 designated Baby-Friendly hospitals and birth centers worldwide. Currently there are over 500 active Baby-Friendly hospitals and birth centers in the United States. The Baby-Friendly designation is given after a rigorous on-site survey is completed.

Every facility providing maternity services and care for newborn infants should:

1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
2. Train all health care staff in the skills necessary to implement this policy.
3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth.
5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they are separated from their infants.
6. Give infants no food or drink other than breast milk, 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 pacifiers or artificial nipples to breastfeeding infants.
10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or birth center.

The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding form the basis of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, a worldwide breastfeeding quality improvement project created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Baby-Friendly hospitals and birth centers also uphold the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes by offering parents support, education, and educational materials that promote the use of human milk rather than other infant food or drinks, and by refusing to accept or distribute free or subsidized supplies of breast milk substitutes, nipples, and other feeding devices.