Breastfeeding Continuity of Care

The Breastfeeding Family Friendly Communities (BFFC) initiative began as a pilot project in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, North Carolina, in 2014. Development of the Breastfeeding Family Friendly Communities initiative was led by Dr. Miriam Labbok, then director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute (CGBI). With a vision to improve lactation duration, BFFC developed a set of measures to guide communities in welcoming lactating families–especially Black, Brown, and historically marginalized families–in all the spaces and places in which families live, work, learn, shop, eat, play, visit. A Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community helps to create a healthier, more welcoming community for families. Breastfeeding Family Friendly Communities works to nurture a more breastfeeding, chestfeeding, and human milk feeding friendly community by advocating for policies and practices that support optimal infant feeding, using a Ten Steps approach that complements and broadens the community scope of the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF guidelines. The measure, called the Ten Steps to a Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community, fosters continuity of care through pregnancy and birth to the family’s intended time to wean by building awareness of the community’s role in supporting families, eliminating disparities, and providing measures and approaches to build a welcoming environment for families, including historically marginalized families.  Using the Ten Steps to a Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community, we are a volunteer driven organization that provides education, mentorship, and assistance to communities as they work to make changes so that every family that is chest/breastfeeding will be able to do so in spaces that are welcoming and supportive.