The National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality has selected 90 hospitals to participate in Best Fed Beginnings, a national effort to improve breast-feeding support by nurses.

Participants in the 22-month learning collaborative, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will work with national breast-feeding and quality improvement experts to implement the "10 Steps to Successful Breast-Feeding" established by the World Health Organization/UNICEF Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The steps include helping mothers initiate breast-feeding within a half-hour of birth and giving newborns no food or drink other than breast milk unless medically indicated (see www.unicef.org/newsline/tenstps.htm).

As part of the initiative, team members will work with each other and with national breast-feeding and quality experts through in-person learning sessions and subsequent action periods. The first session is in September, with the first three-month action period beginning in October.

In addition, senior administrators from the hospitals will participate in a concurrent leadership track highlighting their critical role in supporting system-level changes.

For a list of the 90 participating hospitals, visit http://bit.ly/LORfj7.