SynthesisMaternal & child nutrition2019
The impact of the UK Baby Friendly Initiative on maternal and infant health outcomes: A mixed-methods systematic review.
Synthesis in Maternal & child nutrition, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Guilt, shame, and postpartum infant feeding outcomes: A systematic review.Maternal & child nutrition · 2021Pooled it
- The impact of the UK Baby Friendly Initiative on maternal and infant health outcomes: A mixed-methods systematic review.Maternal & child nutrition · 2019Pooled it
- Mothers' experiences of support during a structured breastfeeding support programme in antenatal care: a lifeworld hermeneutic study.International breastfeeding journal · 2026Article
- Evaluating a neonatal public health education and empowerment programme to reduce infant mortality risks: insights from parents and facilitators in the midlands, UK.Frontiers in global women's health · 2026Article
- Building a baby-friendly community: Development, strategy, implementation and evaluation of a BFCI program.Journal of advanced nursing · 2025Article
- The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative and Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding programs: applying the Non-adoption, Abandonment, Spread, Scale up, Sustainability (NASSS) health technology adoption framework to analyze challenges to hospital implementation in Australia and Indonesia.International breastfeeding journal · 2025Article
- An overview of reviews of breastfeeding barriers and facilitators: Analyzing global research trends and hotspots.Global epidemiology · 2025Review
- Breastfeeding: The Multifaceted Impact on Child Development and Maternal Well-Being.Nutrients · 2025Review
- Collecting real-time infant feeding and support experience: co-participatory pilot study of mobile health methodology.International breastfeeding journal · 2025Article
- Overcoming barriers to gut microbiome development through nutritional factors in the first 1,000 days of life: strategies and implications for preventing non-communicable diseases.Gut microbiome (Cambridge, England) · 2025Review
- Stakeholders' views of the Baby Friendly Initiative implementation and impact: a mixed methods study.International breastfeeding journal · 2024Article
- Perspective: Supporting Maternal Efforts to Provide Optimal Infant Nutrition in the Post-Partum Setting.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024Article
- Psychosocial predictors of post-natal anxiety and depression: Using Structural Equation Modelling to investigate the relationship between pressure to breastfeed, health care professional support, post-natal guilt and shame, and post-natal anxiety and depression within an infant feeding context.Maternal & child nutrition · 2024Article
- Article
- The impact of the baby friendly hospital initiative on healthcare utilization among newborns insured by Medicaid in Delaware.BMC pediatrics · 2023Article
- Improving breastfeeding support through the implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital and Community Initiatives: a scoping review.International breastfeeding journal · 2023Article
- Emotional and informational social support from health visitors and breastfeeding outcomes in the UK.International breastfeeding journal · 2023Article
- Exploring the reasons why mothers do not breastfeed, to inform and enable better support.Frontiers in global women's health · 2023Article
- Maternal perceptions and experiences of breastfeeding support in Baby-Friendly hospitals: An integrative review.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2022Review
- Well-Informed and Willing, but Breastfeeding Does Not Work: A Qualitative Study on Perceived Support from Health Professionals among German Mothers with Breastfeeding Problems.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Global evidence demonstrates that adherence to the Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) has a positive impact on multiple child health outcomes, including breastfeeding initiation and duration up to 1 year post-partum. However, it is currently unclear whether these findings extend to specific countries with resource-rich environments. This mixed-methods systematic review aims to (a) examine the impact of BFI implementation (hospital and community) on maternal and infant health outcomes in the United Kingdom (UK) and (b) explore the experiences and views of women receiving BFI-compliant care in the UK. Two authors independently extracted data including study design, participants, and results. There is no UK data available relating to wider maternal or infant health outcomes. Two quantitative studies indicate that Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative implementation has a positive impact on breastfeeding outcomes up to 1 week post-partum but this is not sustained. There was also some evidence for the positive impact of individual steps of Baby Friendly Community Initiative (n = 3) on breastfeeding up to 8 weeks post-partum. Future work is needed to confirm whether BFI (hospital and community) is effective in supporting longer term breastfeeding and wider maternal and infant health outcomes in the UK. A meta-synthesis of five qualitative studies found that support from health professionals is highly influential to women's experiences of BFI-compliant care, but current delivery of BFI may promote unrealistic expectations of breastfeeding, not meet women's individual needs, and foster negative emotional experiences. These findings reinforce conclusions that the current approach to BFI needs to be situationally modified in resource-rich settings.
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