Baby Friendly/ATAIN

We are very proud of our ‘Baby Friendly’ status, and as a service we have achieved Gold Accreditation through the Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI).

Led by our Lactation Consultant, we ensure that all our Midwives and support workers attend training to BFI standards and have regular updates to ensure their practice is up to date, so we are well equipped to support you to with feeding your baby.Learn more about the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative - (links to an external website)

The BFI Maternity standards enable staff to:

• Support pregnant women to recognise the importance of breastfeeding and early relationships for the health and wellbeing of their baby
• Support all mothers and babies to initiate a close relationship and feeding soon after birth
• Enable mothers to get breastfeeding off to a good start
• Support mothers to make informed decisions regarding the introduction of food or fluids other than breastmilk
• Support parents to have a close and loving relationship with their baby.

In Baby Friendly hospitals mothers and babies now routinely stay together in the immediate post-birth period, helping to get their relationship and breastfeeding off to a good start. This is supported further by our ATAIN programme.

ATAIN is an acronym for Avoiding Term Admissions into Neonatal units. This is a programme of work to reduce harm leading to avoidable admission to a neonatal unit (NNU) for infants born at term (over 37 weeks gestation). A central aim of the work is to prevent harm leading to the separation of mother and baby.

Your baby will be given a ‘traffic light’ colour coded hat or blanket shortly after birth, to help us to easily identify babies who may need additional care and keep them safe on busy wards. We are very grateful to the many volunteers who kindly donate knitted goods to us in support of this work. All hats and blankets are laundered prior to being handed out and will be yours to take home.