Public Health Achieves ‘Baby-Friendly’ Re-designation as a Breastfeeding Leader
Written by admin, September 10, 2014
September 10, 2014 – PCCHU Remains One of the Longest-Standing Public Healths in Ontario with Baby-Friendly Status
At today’s Board of Health meeting, Peterborough Public Health was honoured by the Breastfeeding Committee for Canada (BCC) for achieving its Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI) re-designation status for the next five years.
“This is a significant accomplishment for Public Health because local women look to us for leadership in the support of breastfeeding,” said Dr. Rosana Salvaterra, Medical Officer of Health. “I am proud of how strongly this achievement speaks of our Public Health staff, as every single employee participated in this process to ensure we remained a designated BFI organization.”
The BFI is an evidenced based best practice program, based on criteria established by the World Health Organization, and is designed to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies by improving the quality of their care, and establishing breastfeeding as the cultural norm.
Representatives from BCC were on hand at the Board of Health meeting to officially present Peterborough Public Health with its re-designation certificate.
The PCCHU was only the second health unit in Ontario to achieve BFI status when it was first designated in 2008. Having this status is a provincial accountability indicator for health units according the Ontario Public Health Standards. The BFI Status indicator monitors public health performance related to the implementation of a number of BFI requirements to promote, support and protect breastfeeding. As of June 2014, 15 out of 36 health units in Ontario have achieved BFI designation.
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