Lafayette General Medical Center Moves into D4 Phase Toward Becoming a Baby-Friendly Hospital

Baby-Friendly USA, Inc., announced Lafayette General Medical Center (LGMC) has achieved D4 – Designation phase, in the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI). Becoming a Baby-Friendly Hospital is a comprehensive, detailed and thorough journey towards excellence in providing evidence-based maternity care with the goal of achieving optimal infant feeding outcomes and mother/baby bonding.

LGMC has focused on becoming the first Baby-Friendly hospital in Lafayette by delivering patient-centered care to improve the health outcomes for mothers and babies. BFHI focuses on implementing the 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.

LGMC completed three major goals to reach the D4- Designation phase, staff training, data collection and patient education. LGMC’s nursing staff finished the required 15 hours of education and an additional five hours of skills competency. This training continues with all new hires. Now, all staff are highly trained on what it means to be a Baby-Friendly designated facility.

For the second goal, data collecting, LGMC added additional documentation to the Electronic Medical Record to establish a place to document required elements such as when the baby experienced skin to skin contact, patient education, etc.

LGMC has different education pieces for moms who choose to breastfeed and those who do not. The breastfeeding resource booklet includes what skin to skin contact is and it’s importance, baby hunger cues, how to latch, hand expression, pacifier use, pumping and storing of breastmilk, and more.

After being informed of the benefits for breastfeeding, and moms choose to formula feed, LGMC provides education regarding safe feeding and handling of formula. Also, LGMC implemented Mommy Nap Time from 2-4 p.m. at the hospital, to allow new moms and their support person to have uninterrupted time for rest.

“By implementing the Baby Friendly 10 Steps at our hospital, we are allowing moms to make an informed choice about how they choose to feed their baby, giving them the support to do so, and making them aware of resources for on-going support post discharge,” said Karen Lavergne, Lactation Consultant.

“Our success thus far has been the great multidisciplinary team approach we’ve had involving staff from all our Maternal-Newborn & Pediatric Services. This includes our lactation consultants and nurses, our physician champions, the team from UHC that runs the affiliated antenatal clinic, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) representatives and our mother representatives from Family Circle,” said Judy Robichaux, Director of Maternal, Newborn and Pediatric Services at LGMC. “Our team is very dedicated and has seen great results for our moms and babies.”