Baby Friendly Initiative implementation: maternity staff experiences.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Barriers, challenges and facilitators of implementing the Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) in a maternity organisation: A qualitative study of the views and experiences of maternity staff.
IRAS ID
274438
Contact name
Hazel Tennant
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Bournemouth University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
NCT04395703, ClinicalTrials.gov
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 2 months, 11 days
Research summary
The aim of this research is to identify barriers, challenges and facilitators to the implementation of the Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) Standards in a maternity organisation.
The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative was introduced globally in 1991 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations’ International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) as an effort to implement practices that promote, protect and support breastfeeding. In 1995 Unicef introduced an accreditation programme in the United Kingdom (UK) named the BFI. This accreditation programme was put in place to support both hospital and community-based services to better support families with infant feeding.
NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group's (DCCG) strategy for maternity services in Dorset states that all maternity units achieve full accreditation for BFI status, this matches with the current UK governments NHS long term plan. Recently Dorset County Hospital (DCH) struggled to achieve the outcomes necessary to guarantee accreditation during a Unicef BFI inspection.
A literature search was performed of the barriers, challenges and facilitators to the successful implementation of the BFI in a maternity organisation. No literature in this search was based in the UK, therefore identifying a need for this research.
Staff employed at local maternity units will be invited to attend individual interviews. Interviews will be both unstructured and semi-structured. The latter of which will be guided by open ended questions and prompts. Interviews will either be face to face or via webcam/video messenger. Focus groups will then follow the individual interviews.
This research has potential to identify valuable insights into how BFI could be implemented more easily and challenges that need to be overcome. This can inform managers, infant feeding leads and all maternity staff supporting mothers and babies.
The findings and recommendations will be disseminated through publications in midwifery journals, posters for display, presenting at conferences and training within maternity organisations.REC name
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REC reference
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