New hospital protocol: Encourage breastfeeding

Rachel Montgomery, is seen here with her two-day-old son Rowan. At left is father Grant Montgomery. Photo: TNS

In 1989, an international panel of experts called attention to the irony that health workers were preventing many newborns from getting the healthiest possible food – mother’s milk.

Hospital maternity units were contributing, “however unwittingly”, to the long decline in breastfeeding by failing to encourage mums to do it, or by introducing practices that discourage it, such as giving baby formula.