THE EFFECT OF HEALTH CARE PRACTICES ON INFANT FEEDING

In 1999 aiming to improve the infant feeding practices, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Armenia (MOH) and UNICEF Armenian country office initiated the implementation of Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI). In 2003 the implementation of a new, Baby Friendly Polyclinic Initiative (BFPI), started as the adopted version of WHO/UNICEF BFHI designed for implementation in polyclinics. In 2008, MOH and UNICEF initiated a study to assess the effectiveness in implementation of mentioned initiatives by comparing health care practices, breastfeeding rates and knowledge of mothers and health staff in the sphere of infant nutrition in baby-friendly polyclinics (BFPs) and not certified polyclinics (NCPs). The comparison showed that breastfeeding rates are significantly higher at BFPs than in NCPs. Mothers, who have participated in antenatal classes, gave about twice more correct answers to questions on breasfeeding and were more often to exclusively breastfeed. Early skin-to-skin contact initiation percentage was the same in baby-friendly and non-certified hospitals. Prelacteal feeding and usage of bottles and teats was practiced rarer in baby-friendly hospitals. Health personnel working in baby-friendly facilities compared to healthcare providers in not certified facilities gave more correct answers to questions on infant feeding; this latter is explained by the fact that almost all health workers in certified facilities have participated in awareness-raising seminars on infant feeding. The study revealed that breastfed infants (exclusively or predominantly) compared to artificially fed infants had fewer episodes of acute respiratory illnesses (ARI). Thus, the result of the survey confirmed the effectiveness of baby-friendly initiatives implementation in primary health care facilities.