By California Department of Public Health, Maternal, Child & Adolescent Health, October 2, 2019
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), Center for Family Health is pleased to announce that the 2018 in-hospital breastfeeding data have been posted to the CDPH In-Hospital Breastfeeding Initiation Data website. We encourage all hospitals to utilize these data to integrate Quality Improvement (QI) efforts within the perinatal unit to ensure policies and practices are supportive of breastfeeding.
Administrators at local hospitals have received a letter encouraging their use of these data as part of their QI measures. The letter also provides information on resources and technical assistance available to assist them in developing hospital policies to increase exclusive breastfeeding in the early post-partum period.
The data allows each hospital to compare its breastfeeding rates to other hospitals and to their County and State rates. Data are also stratified by race and ethnicity. For these data, exclusive breastfeeding is defined as infants receiving only breast milk up to the time of specimen collection for newborn genetic screening tests prior to hospital discharge, while any breastfeeding includes exclusively breastfed as well as infants receiving both breast milk and formula. Please review the letter and data to support hospitals in improving their policies to increase exclusive breastfeeding rates.
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