Public Health’s baby-friendly journey 

Public Health is working toward the community Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI) designation, a globally recognized standard of care that strengthens how we support families with infant feeding. Many Nova Scotia Health hospitals have already achieved and continue to maintain this gold standard.  

At its core, BFI focuses on delivering consistent, evidence-based care so all families can make informed feeding decisions and feel supported with respectful, non-judgmental care, no matter where they live or how they feed their infants. Within this, all staff are required to have the knowledge, training and skills to support families.  

Breastfeeding, or chestfeeding, has well-established benefits for infants and parents, supporting child development, parent-child attachment, immune protection, disease prevention and lifelong health. Access to support during pregnancy and after birth is essential to support families to start breastfeeding and continue for longer.

Early Years team members have long been committed to improving supports for infant feeding. Recently, Public Health introduced BFI health promoters in each zone, focused on advancing baby-friendly practices across the program to help with achieving and maintaining BFI designation.

“BFI helps ensure that there is consistency in terms of infant feeding support everywhere,” says Addy Oyagbohun, BFI health promoter for Northern Zone (Colchester-East Hants, Cumberland and Pictou). “It ensures everyone in Public Health Early Years is confident to support families with a standard of care.”

Building a strong foundation  

Much of the work to achieve BFI designation happens behind the scenes. Early Years is developing supportive policies, strengthening partnerships, improving data collection and aligning messaging across programs, while continuously evaluating their processes.  

“Achieving BFI designation isn't a one-time effort. It’s continuous quality improvement work,” says Tessa Baccardax, BFI health promoter for Central Zone (Halifax area, Eastern Shore and West Hants). “It’s about creating sustainable, system-wide and cultural shifts so families feel supported throughout the child’s early years.”  

Part of becoming baby-friendly means that an organization must demonstrate efforts to use family feedback to improve services. Public Health has launched a prenatal and postnatal survey to better understand the education and support families receive to help them feed their babies.  

Informed by data and client feedback, the team will apply a strength-based health equity lens, recognizing that families may face different barriers and need different supports to meet their feeding goals.  

Supported by this evidence-based approach, the health promoters have an important role working collaboratively with their Early Years colleagues.  

“I try to help create opportunities for shared learning, provide resources, answer questions and work through challenges together,” says Briana McCarron, BFI health promoter for Eastern Zone (Cape Breton, Antigonish and Guysborough). “I also really value hearing from public health nurses and community home visitors because their day-to-day experiences with families are such an important part of shaping meaningful BFI work. A lot of this work is about learning from one another.”

The work is strengthened by an engaged Early Years team, Oyagbohun added. “They are always ready whenever there is something new, a new tool or a new message. Their interest in BFI makes things work better.”  

Collaboration with those outside of Early Years is also central to success, says Lisanne Turner, BFI health promoter for Western Zone (Annapolis Valley, South Shore and South West). “We support other Public Health work that intersects with breastfeeding, infant and young child feeding. We also work closely with community partners to address broader early years goals.”  

Making a difference for families  

As Public Health moves toward BFI designation, families may not see all the work happening behind the scenes, but they will experience the benefits.  

“It might look like having more conversations about feeding during pregnancy, receiving earlier support after baby arrives or feeling confident that the advice they receive is consistent no matter who they speak with and knowing they have somewhere to turn if they need help,” McCarron says.

The value of enhancing Public Health feeding supports through achieving BFI designation is clear, noted Baccardax. “We have a unique opportunity to help positively shape lifelong health for infants and their families. Being part of a bigger organizational change is an exciting opportunity.”

Public Health’s journey toward BFI designation is about more than achieving a gold standard. It is about building a more equitable system of care where every family can access the same high-quality support, leading to healthier families and communities for generations.  

“Early Years work is prevention work,” Turner pointed out. “I’ve seen the impact.”  

Learn more about the Baby-Friendly Initiative at Nova Scotia Health.  

Photo of BFI Health promoters (L-R) Lisanne Turner, Briana McCarron, Addy Oyagbohun and Tessa Baccardax.