11th Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) Network Meeting

LLLI Advocacy, Networking and Action Committee

We are delighted that on the 15 – 17 June 2022 Hiroko Hongo was able to attend the meeting on behalf of LLLI. The meeting was held in Brussels, Belgium. Hiroko is a member of the LLLI Advocacy, Networking and Action Committee and a Leader with LLL Japan. She has extensive experience with Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) and international breastfeeding advocacy.

The first in-person BFHI network meeting since 2019

Representatives from five breastfeeding partner organizations were invited to the 11th BFHI network meeting. It was the first in-person BFHI network meeting since 2019. The aims of the meeting included bringing the BFHI coordinators together to share their work and their challenges. Attendees shared updates on current BFHI information. They talked about how to bring BFHI guidelines into more countries around the world. Attendees also found out how and where BFHI was working well.

32 participants attended from 23 countries and 27 participants attended on Zoom.

ATTENDEES LEARNED UPDATES

The attendees worked in groups, heard updates from several countries, and learned about new monitoring tools. This included new guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO). There was a lot of discussion about infant feeding in emergencies and Hiroko shared LLLI resources with attendees. Hiroko also attended a working group about how to ensure that breastfeeding is skillfully supported in the community. Hiroko described LLL’s online support options in addition to in-person meetings. She also told the group about our system of volunteer Leader accreditation for mothers and parents with relevant breastfeeding experience. Hiroko also took part in another group on “mother-friendly” care and she stressed the importance of empowering informed choice in maternity care.

Hiroko found attending this meeting in person, on behalf of LLLI, to be a very meaningful experience. We are so grateful to Hiroko for offering her time and her excellent detailed knowledge of BFHI to represent LLLI so well. To read Hiroko’s full-length report with photographs, please click here.

Hiroko was able to attend the meeting in person on behalf of LLLI thanks to generous donors to LLLI. If you are interested in funding further LLLI advocacy action, please contact the LLLI Treasurer at laura@llli.org and the Executive Director at ed@llli.org.