A Vision
Several years ago I had a vision. The vision was to improve the breastfeeding rates and help women to have the best possible start with their babies by breastfeeding their newborns. One of my pediatrician colleagues, Eleanor Blitzer, MD, said, "Nancy, why not become a Baby-Friendly Hospital?" I investigated the Baby-Friendly USA website and thought this is going to be an enormous task. I thought to myself, I am not even sure our hospital system is ready for it. But, I purchased a video from a hospital in Boston and showed it to my team. Baby-steps. Yes, Baby-steps, got us to this point. We didn't have any support, so we decided we will start this on our own. Again, I purchased a curriculum to teach the 10 Steps and we began to have nursing staff teach one step every month. The staff was so creative! We had fun.
The Florida Breastfeeding Coalition started a new program called Florida Quest for Quality Maternity Services and we found a way to go through the steps one star at a time.... so we started.... we were awarded one star.... we expanded our Lactation Lounge the employees at our hospital and applied and got awarded as a Gold Level Employer for our Breastfeeding practices. We worked with our Human Resources department and got electric breast pumps approved for our employees who delivered a baby in our System.
We got accepted as an EMPower Breastfeeding Hospital and were awarded grants from our local Lee County Health Department to help us on our way to becoming a Baby-Friendly Hospital. Not only that, we got our hospital administration, obstetricians, pediatricians on board with us! We started support groups for mothers. We hosted Big Latch On events during World Breastfeeding Week. We trained 100% of our nursing staff as Certified Breastfeeding Counselors putting someone at the bedside of each new mother 24/7 to help her with breastfeeding when our IBCLC was not available. I even ran for the Florida Breastfeeding Coalition Board of Directors and was appointed!
Last year, we became a Baby-Friendly Hospital. We are so proud of that designation. All of our county maternity hospitals achieved designation in the last year. We are all 5 star Maternity Hospitals according to the Florida Breastfeeding Coalition. We started the Lee County Breastfeeding Coalition.
Tomorrow, something amazing is going to happen. We are going to be at Cape Coral City Hall for a meeting of the City Council when we are going to receive a Resolution made by the City of Cape Coral to support breastfeeding mothers in Cape Coral and to help business to become more breastfeeding friendly. I never thought my simple vision a few years ago would go so far. It indeed, has taken the whole village to see it through! On Friday, I was interviewed about this and a story was shared with the public.
Dream it. Vision it. Make it reality.
