Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI)

Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI)

Part of: Prelims and GS-II -Health

Context The Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI), in collaboration with the Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI) has launched an accreditation programme that will enable hospitals to get a “breastfeeding-friendly” tag.

Key takeaways

• This programme is called “Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI)”.
  • The BFHI programme is a worldwide programme of the WHO and UNICEF. 
• Chennai’s Bloom Healthcare has become the first hospital to be recognised as “breastfeeding-friendly” under this programme.
• The initiative is only for private hospitals and is based on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s MAA programme for government hospitals launched in 2016.
• Process: The certification process involves two stages — the first stage includes self-assessment by a hospital, followed by an external assessment by an authorised appraiser

Breastfeeding status in India

• Early initiation of breastfeeding continues to be low in the country.
• According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021), while there were 88.6% institutional births, only 41.8% of infants were breastfed within the first one hour.
• In fact, many States such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have shown a decline in the proportion of children breastfed within the first hour