Surrey Health Visiting Team celebrates Unicef Baby Friendly reaccreditation during World Breastfeeding Week
Children and Family Health Surrey Health Visiting Team West accepted their Unicef Baby Friendly Award at ‘Snuggles and Cuddles Breastfeeding Support’ group at Hazel Avenue Children’s Centre, Guildford on 6 August.
Gemma Hicks, a mother from the breastfeeding support group, presented the Unicef plaque to health visitors.
Trudy Mills, Director of Children and Family Health Surrey said: “I’m so proud of the Health Visiting Team on achieving this Unicef accreditation - mothers across Surrey can continue to feed their babies with confidence knowing that the support they receive from health visitors is of the very highest quality.”
Maggie Pringle, Infant feeding Coordinator said “This reaccreditation means that Surrey families can have confidence that the standard of care we offer has been externally assessed by Unicef. The assessment involves interviewing mothers about the care they have received and reviewing how health visitors work.’
Children and Family Health Surrey has met all of the criteria for continued Unicef Baby Friendly accreditation. All mothers who were interviewed highly praised their health centres and the staff. The assessors were very impressed by the degree of collaborative working across services.The Unicef assessors found that Health Visiting Teams met all their rigorous criteria on supporting mothers with feeding their babies and developing close and loving relationships.
Recent research has highlighted the practical, emotional and cultural barriers that still stand in the way of women breastfeeding and underline the importance of breastfeeding in improving health, saving lives and reducing costs in every country in the world.
World Breastfeeding Week takes place from 1 to 7 August.