Becoming Baby-Friendly: Increasing breastfeeding exclusivity and duration rates through Vancouver's community health services

Despite recent gains in breastfeeding initiation and ongoing public health recommendations for exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of an infant’s life, breastfeeding exclusivity and duration rates remain suboptimal in Vancouver and across Canada. In an effort to establish breastfeeding as the cultural norm for women, children, and families, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) recently developed a VCH-wide policy and guidelines about the feeding of healthy term infants. This paper describes what is known about breastfeeding rates in Vancouver, the research evidence on effective breastfeeding promotion activities in community settings, and Vancouver Community (VC) considerations related to promotion of breastfeeding to inform the planning process for policy implementation in VC health services. Recommendations include maintaining and enhancing targeted programs emphasising lay support and culturally relevant programming, developing advocacy strategies on the social determinants of health including the promotion of supportive labour market policies, and collaborative data collection strategies.