Nine more hospitals become mother and baby-friendly

Nine more government hospitals in the State have received the Mother and Baby-friendly certification.

These include SAT Hospital; General Hospitals at Pathanamthitta and Ernakulam; Women and Children's hospital at Ponnani and Kozhikode; District hospitals at Nilambur and Mananthavady and Malappuram taluk headquarters hospital.

So far, 25 hospitals in the State have received the certification and more hospitals are preparing to receive the certification.

Mother and Baby-friendly initiative had been launched in the State to encourage public and private health facilities to support and facilitate breastfeeding by new mothers, to reduce neonatal mortality and improve the health of infants.

As part of the initiative, clear guidelines had been formulated for the certification of hospitals. Apart from the 10-point quality indicators of the UNICEF and WHO, a quality standard certification with 130 check points had been drawn up by the State for certifying hospitals as mother and baby-friendly

An experts’ team from the State conducts the quality checks in hospitals before issuing the certification.