Contract for the provison of a Breastfeeding Peer Support Service

1.1 Breastfeeding provides short and long term health benefits to both the mother and the baby, including promoting the emotional attachment between them both; and contributes significantly to reducing health inequalities.

1.2 It is expected that the Breastfeeding Peer Support Programme will contribute to promoting a social and cultural shift where breastfeeding is viewed as the conventional way to feed a baby. The Department of Health recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months as providing optimum nutrition for babies with the gradual introduction of solid food after this time in tune with the baby’s developmental progress.

1.3 Parents can benefit from, early, evidence based information in order to enable them to make an informed infant feeding choice. Proactive, intensive, and early skilled support in breastfeeding management helps to prevent any problems and/or barriers that lead to mothers stopping breastfeeding earlier than they or their baby would have wished.

1.4 Nice Guidelines (Nice Public Health Guidance 11 March 2008) recommend the commissioning of a local, easily accessible breastfeeding peer support programme where peer supporters are part of a multidisciplinary team. The recommendation is that peer supporters are trained through an externally accredited training programme; contact new mothers directly within 48 hours of their transfer home (or within 48 hour of a home birth) and offer mothers on-going support according to their individual needs.

1.5 A breastfeeding peer support service would work in close partnership and help to develop accessible pathways with midwifery, health visiting and children centre services who would demonstrate best practice breastfeeding management through UNICEF Baby Friendly full accreditation standards.