Second prestigious award for Solihull breastfeeding service - The Solihull Observer

Second prestigious award for Solihull breastfeeding service

Solihull Editorial 16th May, 2016 Updated: 24th Oct, 2016   0

BREASTFEEDING mums from across the borough joined staff from Solihull Community Services to celebrate it receiving a prestigious international ‘baby friendly’ award for the second time.

The Solihull community health visiting and infant feeding services, which are part of Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, have been re-accredited by UNICEF for their ‘baby friendly’ work.

Meeting these standards of the assessment is seen as confirmation that the teams are providing parents with the best possible care to build close and loving relationships with their baby through feeding.

Elaine Bates, infant feeding coordinator at Solihull Community Services, said: “The UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative is designed to support feeding and parent infant relationships by working with public services to improve standards of care.




“To be recognised in this way confirms that our teams are providing a high quality service to parents across Solihull.

“The teams have worked extremely hard to receive this prestigious award and are passionate about the work they do.”


Solihull Council director of public health and commissioning, Stephen Munday, was on hand at a special celebration event at Mill Lodge Children’s Centre in Shirley, where the Trust’s Infant Feeding Team holds a weekly breastfeeding café for mums in the area, to present members of the teams with a plaque honouring their achievement.

Congratulating staff of their work, he said: “A high quality infant feeding service is so important to ensure that parents are supported by both professional carers as well as by peer supporters.

“Achieving this accreditation (for the second time) demonstrates that we do have a high quality service in Solihull. This is a tremendous achievement and will be really important to improving uptake of breastfeeding in Solihull.

“We know that the service has been put through an extremely rigorous assessment process but what is particularly impressive is that the views of parents on the quality of the support have been taken into account.

“Congratulations to the infant feeding team and thanks for all of the hard work that is done to support Solihull mums to breastfeed.”

Email [email protected], visit their website www.youplusbaby.co.uk or contact the Solihull Community Infant Feeding Service on 0121 713 8924 for advice and support on breastfeeding.

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