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Breastfeeding Resources

Liv is an app created by Indiana’s State Department of Health to provide education and awareness to pregnant and parenting families about a wide array of topics to help prepare for birthing and raising your baby. Within this app, you will find articles of the most up-to-date breastfeeding information, videos to help overcome challenges for breastfeeding and resources to help you continue your breastfeeding journey. Through the website, you can also ask Liv questions and she will respond to you promptly to help with your breastfeeding needs.

Partners and Resources in Indiana include:

 

National Breastfeeding Support

The 2011 Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding outlines steps that can be taken to remove some of the obstacles faced by women who want to breastfeed their babies. The Call to Action aims for a society-wide approach to support mothers and babies who are breastfeeding. A 2009 American Academy of Pediatrics cost analysis found that if 90 percent of women breastfed exclusively for 6 months, the United States would save $13 billion and prevent nearly 1,000 infant deaths per year.

 

The Office of Women’s Health Guide to Breastfeeding offers tips, tricks and education for a parent to support breastfeeding.  It’s a great reference tool for any parent looking for more information to support their breastfeeding journey.

 

Support in the Workplace

Today, more than 75 percent of women in the United States begin breastfeeding, but the most frequent time for a woman to stop breastfeeding is when she returns to work. Women with children are the fastest-growing segment of the work force, and balancing work and family is an important priority for them. It is important for returning mothers to be in a work environment that provides adequate space and time for them to express their milk during the work day. This allows a woman to continue to give her best efforts at work and for her baby. National resources for supporting breastfeeding moms at work can be found at Office of Women’s Health. For more local resources, please visit ISDH Office of Women’s Health

Federal law requires that employers provide two basic types of accommodations for breastfeeding employees: time and space for breastfeeding or pumping breast milk. Information about the laws can be found on the United States Breastfeeding Committee website.

Breastfeeding Laws in Indiana

The state of Indiana supports your decision to breastfeed!

Ind. Code § 16-35-6 allows a woman to breastfeed her child anywhere the law allows her to be.  (HB 1510).  Ind. Code § 5-10-6-2 and § 22-2-14-2 provide that state and political subdivisions shall provide for reasonable paid breaks for an employee to express breast milk for her infant, make reasonable efforts to provide a room or other location, other than a toilet stall, where the employee can express breast milk in private and make reasonable efforts to provide for a refrigerator to keep breast milk that has been expressed. The law also provides that employers with more than 25 employees must provide a private location, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express the employee's breast milk in private and if possible to provide a refrigerator for storing breast milk that has been expressed.

Breastfeeding Friendly Hospitals 

In 1991, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), a global program to promote implementation of the WHO Code, i.e. the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. The BFHI assists hospitals and families by encouraging the information, confidence and skills to successfully initiate and maintain breast milk feeding for their babies by following the best evidence-based practices in breastfeeding care.

The WHO and UNICEF administer the BFHI program internationally and work with the national authority in each country for the Baby-Friendly®. More than 20,000 maternity facilities in 150 countries around the world have earned the Baby-Friendly designation. Currently in Indiana, 21 hospitals have obtained this designation, with multiple hospitals obtaining re-certification.Hospitals are required to recertify every five years to maintain their status as Baby-Friendly®.

Baby Friendly Hospitals in Indiana

  1. Community Hospital of Anderson
  2. IU Health Methodist Hospital
  3. Logansport Memorial Hospital
  4. IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital
  5. Franciscan Health Indianapolis
  6. Henry Community Health
  7. Pulaski Memorial Hospital
  8. Parkview Whitley Hospital
  9. Reid Health Hospital
  10. Columbus Regional Hospital
  11. Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center – Plymouth
  12. IU Health Bloomington Hospital
  13. Union Hospital, Inc.
  14. Goshen Hospital
  15. Schneck Medical Center
  16. Elkhart General Hospital
  17. Memorial Hospital of South Bend
  18. Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center – Mishawaka
  19. St. Mary Medical Center
  20. Hancock Regional
  21. The Women’s Hospital

Indiana Breastfeeding Data 

CDC’s Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) Survey

Hospital routines can help or hinder new mothers and babies while they’re learning to breastfeed. The CDC’s national survey of Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) is administered every two years to monitor and examine changes in practices over time at all hospitals and birth centers with registered maternity beds in the United States and Territories. Check out Indiana’s latest mPINC score and how it compares to the rest of the country here. The most recent survey data was collected in 2018-2019 and reports should be coming soon. Indiana maintained a high level of completion for the survey during this round.

CDC Breastfeeding Report Cards 

Breastfeeding, with its many known health benefits for infants, children, and mothers, is a key strategy to improve public health. To track our nation’s progress on achieving the Healthy People 2020 goals, CDC’s 2018 Breastfeeding Report Card provides a compilation of data on breastfeeding practices and supports in all states, the District of Columbia (DC), Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.  This data is used in Indiana to plan breastfeeding strategies and measure improvement in breastfeeding rates and practices within our state.  You can access the latest data from 2018 here.

Indiana Vital Records Birth Record data and PRAMS data

Breastfeeding is a primary prevention strategy to reduce infant mortality and improve infant and maternal health outcomes throughout the lifespan.  In our state, ISDH reports on data from the birth record which indicates if the baby is breastfeeding at hospital discharge.  Indiana is also a new PRAMS state since 2017, and is hopeful to provide further data from this survey in the future.  Data continues to be collected at this time from PRAMS.

If you have any Indiana specific breastfeeding data questions, please reach out to Jenny Durica, Director of MCH Epidemiology, at isdhmch@isdh.in.gov.

 

For more information, please contact:

Isdhmch@isdh.in.gov