WHO/UNICEF Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding
| 1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff. |
| 2. Train all health care staff in the skills necessary to implement this policy. |
| 3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding. |
| 4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within the first hour of birth. |
| 5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they are separated from their infants. |
| 6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated. |
| 7. Practice rooming-in (allow mothers and infants to remain together) 24 h a day. |
| 8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand. |
| 9. Give no artificial nipples or pacifiers to breastfeeding infants.a |
| 10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from hospital. |
| 1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff. |
| 2. Train all health care staff in the skills necessary to implement this policy. |
| 3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding. |
| 4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within the first hour of birth. |
| 5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they are separated from their infants. |
| 6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated. |
| 7. Practice rooming-in (allow mothers and infants to remain together) 24 h a day. |
| 8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand. |
| 9. Give no artificial nipples or pacifiers to breastfeeding infants.a |
| 10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from hospital. |
The AAP does not support a categorical ban on pacifiers because of their role in SIDS risk reduction and their analgesic benefit during painful procedures when breastfeeding cannot provide the analgesia. Pacifier use in the hospital in the neonatal period should be limited to specific medical indications such as pain reduction and calming in a drug-exposed infant, for example. Mothers of healthy term breastfed infants should be instructed to delay pacifier use until breastfeeding is well-established, usually about 3 to 4 wk after birth.