Current Projects and Activities

Promoting Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the natural way to feed infants and provides protection against a large number of immediate and longer-term health problems.

In addition to the monitoring work on breastfeeding (link to M&S), the Cluster has a strong record in breastfeeding advocacy and promotion.

In order to guide practitioners about what works, several reports were compiled reviewing the evidence-base of interventions to promote and support breastfeeding (link to overview report in EBP section). The second of these reports, in particular, was aimed towards getting research into policy and practice (link to case studies report in EBP section). The identification of gaps in the evidence about the effectiveness of various strategies, and about factors contributing to less than optimal infant feeding, is an important contribution of these reports.

Much of this work was summarised in a special edition of the NSW Public Health Bulletin ‘Breastfeeding and the Public’s Health’ in 2005, Issue 16 (3-4) [PDF] which included papers by Cluster staff on the following topics:

• A guest editorial that outlines the public health importance of breastfeeding [View link]
• A brief summary of the NHMRC infant feeding guidelines [View link]
• An overview of the evidence for the benefits of breastfeeding in developed countries such as Australia [View link]
• A description of breastfeeding practices in NSW, based on the results from the NSW Child Health Survey 2001 [View link]
• An article describing a conceptual model that can be used to interpret the factors that affect the capacity of women to breastfeed [View link]
• An overview of, and the evidence base for, interventions to promote breastfeeding [View link]

Policy

The work outlined above underpinned the development of the NSW Health Breastfeeding Policy.

Recent work in this area has included contributions to the ‘Parliamentary Inquiry into Breastfeeding’ by the Commonwealth Department of Health & Ageing ( CPHN submission; 2006-2007) and a review of the breastfeeding policy of the Public Health Association of Australia.

Monitoring of breastfeeding

Ongoing work on the monitoring of breastfeeding includes analysis and reporting of the most recently available data on breastfeeding practices in NSW (using data from the continuous NSW Population Health Survey). This work enables continued refinement of methods for analysis and reporting, and consultation on, breastfeeding monitoring.

The Cluster also advises on breastfeeding indicators for use in hospital and health services auditing, including accreditation of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative.