Montefiore Einstein’s Weiler Campus’ Breastfeeding Committee organized a parade on Wednesday, Aug. 28, involving participants from Weiler Hospital, Montefiore Medical Park Executive Professional Center (EPC), and Montefiore Medical Group Comprehensive Family Care Center (CFCC).
The parade was put together in order to recognize the efforts of associates supporting breastfeeding and to raise awareness during Breastfeeding Awareness Month. All breastfeeding women—as well as the healthcare teams and community who support them—were celebrated during the parade.
Among those who took part in the parade were maternal child health experts, nurses, lactation specialists, patient care coordinators and parents. They all wore bright pink t-shirts and marched together from the Weiler Hospital lobby to the Executive Professional Center.
Associates who completed the march were given plaques and certificates recognizing Montefiore Medical Group Comprehensive Family Care Center’s “2024 Baby-Friendly Hospital Re-Designation.” The attendees then returned to the auditorium at the Weiler Hospital to close out the day’s celebration.
Launched in 1991, the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative encourages and recognizes hospitals and birthing centers that offer new mothers and their babies an optimal degree of care. Rigorous on-site surveys must first be done before this designation can be given. Hospitals must be shown to have adhered to the “Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding” in these surveys.
Some of these steps include having breastfeeding policies in writing, consistently training staff on policy implementation and informing all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
Hospitals that earn the 2024 Baby-Friendly Hospital Re-Designation will have it for five years. The responsibility for designating birth facilities as Baby-Friendly falls on Baby-Friendly USA—a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Prior to earning the 2024 Baby-Friendly Hospital Re-Designation, Montefiore was the only health system in New York City to have two hospitals earn the Baby-Friendly designation at the same time, in 2017.
The WHO, UNICEF, World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) and multiple Ministries of Health and civil society partners support the observance of World Breastfeeding Week every August. This year’s theme was “Closing the Gap: Breastfeeding Support for All,” celebrating breastfeeding mothers in all their diversity and throughout their journeys, all while showcasing how families societies, communities and health workers support these mothers.
