Jim Fair
Greer Memorial Hospital celebrated its recognition becoming a Baby-Friendly birth facility with a blue and pink ribbon cutting.
Jim Fair
Nurses and staff of the Baby-Friendly recognized Greer Memorial Hospital birthing unity.
“We love our babies and love our mommas,” said Deidre Nall, registered nurse at Greer Memorial since before the initiative.
“It was a process that required a lot of meetings, changing processes and money we had to spend,” Nall said. “We prioritized what we could check off and took small steps going forward.”
The five-year initiative was a matter of checking off the 10-point criteria with the arduous authenticity of its doctors and their staff, their practices and credentials. The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative encourages and recognizes hospitals and birthing centers to maintain an optimal level of care for breastfeeding others and their babies, offering them information, confidence and skills needed to successfully initiate and continue breastfeeding.
Being a Baby-Friendly facility, “Means we are giving moms informed decisions how they want to feed their babies – we encourage breastfeeding, Dedra Ray, a RN, said. “This has been a journey, some parts of the journey was faster than others.”
Ray said the majority of nurses were on staff before the start of the initiative and celebrated the public announcement Thursday. “Everyone has worked so hard and happy,” she said of the surprised announcement.
The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding are:
• Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
• Train all health care staff in the skills necessary to implement this policy.
• Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
• Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth.
• Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation, even if they are separated from their infants.
• Give infants no food or drink other than breast-milk, unless medically indicated.
• Practice rooming in - allow mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day.
• Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
• Give no pacifiers or artificial nipples to breastfeeding infants.
• Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or birth center.
“Breastfeeding classes are something we do naturally and so well we can teach them step by step,” said Stephonie Hinojos said.
“We are honored to have received this designation for our work in caring for mothers and newborns in the Greer community, said Bonne Johnson, Chief Nursing Officer at Greer Memorial Hospital. “Breastfeeding is a key practice that improves the health of mothers and newborns, and our goal is to ensure that the mothers we care for understand the best ways to nurture healthy relationships with their babies.”
The initiative is a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).