For Providers

Breastfeeding Counseling Guides
for Health Care Professionals
These one-page guides developed by the Iowa Breastfeeding Coalition are intended for use by health care professionals when counseling mothers.

Surgeon General’s Key Actions to Support Breastfeeding
This resourse provides key actions that doctors, nurses, and health care leadership can do to support breastfeeding.

Effects of Breastfeeding on Disease Risk Reduction
Breastfeeding can reduce the risk of disease in both children and women. This paper looks at the protection against overweight/obesity, cardiovascular disease, and breast cancer.

Outcomes of Breastfeeding
This document provides a summary of current journal articles on specific diseases or health concerns and is broken down into the following three sections: Effects on the Infant, Maternal Effects, and Societal Effects.

Professional Breastfeeding Publications
A list of breastfeeding publications for health care professionals who counsel nursing mothers.

Baby Steps to Breastfeeding Success
Model Hospital Policy Resource Guide
Compilation of model hospital policies developed by the Arizona Department of Public Health. Includes evidence-based best practices that have been demonstrated to significantly increase the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding.

CDC Vital Signs: Hospital Support for Breastfeeding
Preventing obesity begins in hospitals
This 4 page document discusses how most hospitals do not fully support breastfeeding and provides suggestions for improvement. Download the PDF here.

Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative in the U.S.
The initiative promotes, protects, and supports breastfeeding through The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding for Hospitals, as outlined by UNICEF/WHO. The steps for the United States are:

Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.
Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth.
Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation, even if they are separated from their infants.
Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breastmilk, unless medically indicated.
Practice “rooming in” – allowing mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day.
Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
Give no pacifiers or artificial nipples to breastfeeding infants.
Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.

Hand Expression of Breastmilk
Hand expression is a useful skill for breastfeeding mothers. Dr. Jane Morton from Stanford School of Medicine demonstrates how to teach mothers to hand express breastmilk in this seven minute video.