Staff at Solihull Community Services, part of Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, were joined by breastfeeding mums from across Solihull as they celebrated receiving international recognition for their work to give babies the best start in life.
UNICEF reaccredited the Solihull community health visiting and infant feeding services as ‘baby friendly’ as part of an internationally recognised initiative following a rigorous assessment. Meeting these standards of the assessment is seen as confirmation that the teams are providing parents with the best possible care to build close and loving relationships with their baby and to feed their baby in ways which will support optimum health and development.
Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council director of public health and commissioning, Stephen Munday, was on hand at a special event at Mill Lodge Children’s Centre in Shirley, where the Trust’s Infant Feeding Team holds a weekly breastfeeding café for mums in the area, to present members of the teams with a plaque honouring the world-renowned Level 3 accreditation.
Elaine Bates, infant feeding coordinator at Solihull Community Services, said: “The UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative is designed to support feeding and parent infant relationships by working with public services to improve standards of care. To be recognised in this way confirms that our teams are providing a high quality service to parents across Solihull.
“The teams have worked extremely hard to receive this prestigious award and are passionate about the work they do. I would like to thank Stephen for coming down to present the plaque and hear more about the great work going on within the service.”
Stephen Munday congratulated the service on the award and spoke about the importance of breastfeeding for the health and wellbeing of the mother and their baby.
He said: “A high quality infant feeding service is so important to ensure that parents are supported by both professional carers as well as by peer supporters. Achieving this accreditation (for the second time) demonstrates that we do have a high quality service in Solihull. This is a tremendous achievement and will be really important to improving uptake of breastfeeding in Solihull.
“We know that the service has been put through an extremely rigorous assessment process but what is particularly impressive is that the views of parents on the quality of the support have been taken into account.
“Congratulations to the infant feeding team and thanks for all of the hard work that is done to support Solihull mums to breastfeed.”
For further advice and support on breastfeeding, please contact Solihull Community Infant Feeding Service on 0121 713 8924, email elaine.bates@heartofengland.nhs.uk or visit their website www.youplusbaby.co.uk
