August Digest: National Breastfeeding Month Edition

Health Professional Digest Volume 1, Issue 18

The HHS Office on Women’s Health (OWH) knows how important it is for you to have the latest information on prevention and treatment to help you best serve your patients. Each month, we will share a curated list of tools and resources that you can immediately put into practice. Providing Breastfeeding Support — News You Can Use According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2016 Breastfeeding Report Card, among infants born in 2013, 4 out of 5 (81.1%) started to breastfeed, over half (51.8%) were breastfeeding at six months, and almost one-third (30.7%) were breastfeeding at 12 months. These rates suggest that most mothers in the United States want to breastfeed and are trying to do so, but a variety of factors — lack of knowledge about breastfeeding, cultural and social norms, concerns about milk supply, poor family and social support, and unsupportive work and childcare environments — make it difficult for them to continue. Doctors, nurses, midwives, lactation consultants, doulas, and community health workers play a vital role in helping pregnant women and new moms initiate breastfeeding and overcome challenges to continue breastfeeding. This August, mark National Breastfeeding Month by reviewing the following tools and resources to learn how you can best help your patients meet their breastfeeding goals. Your Guide to Breastfeeding This free, easy-to-read publication provides women with the information and support they need to breastfeed successfully. Use this guide when meeting with pregnant women and breastfeeding moms in your community. A limited supply of print guides is available to community health workers/promotores de salud, doctors, nurses, midwives, lactation consultants, and doulas in bulk quantities (a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 250). To order hard copies, you can call the National Women's Health and Breastfeeding Helpline at 1-800-994-9662 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday. The publication is also available as a PDF and ePub. Breastfeeding Professional Education Opportunities Knowing how to support pregnant women and breastfeeding moms in your practice or community can be challenging. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) provides numerous training opportunities and educational resources, including continuing medical education, handbooks, live conferences, and more.  Making Your Clinical Practice Breastfeeding-friendly Breastfeeding infants and their mothers are typically cared for in a clinical practice setting during the newborn’s first year of life, making it important for the outpatient setting to be conducive to providing breastfeeding support. Review AAP’s How To Have a Breastfeeding Friendly Practice and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Innovative Approaches To Promote Breastfeeding to help you make your clinical practice breastfeeding-friendly. For tips on initiating breastfeeding conversations with your patients, see the Physician Conversation Guide on Support for Breastfeeding from The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.  Share With Your Patients Encourage your patients to review these materials on breastfeeding: OWH's Learning to Breastfeed in English and Spanish OWH's National Women’s Health and Breastfeeding Helpline (1-800-994-9662) OWH’s Breastfeeding videos in English and Spanish Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program's Breastfeeding 101 United States Lactation Consultant Association's Find an IBCLC Directory For more updates on women’s health, follow OWH on Twitter.