The Hospital Advocacy Project was designed to help moms know their rights and empower them to request these rights when they are in the hospital.
Ideally, all hospitals should have breastfeeding friendly and evidence based practices. As a first step, we want to help administration understand how women feel about their birth experience.
Consumers play a large part in changing practices. With the "Breastfeeding Bill of Rights", mothers will know their rights when they enter the hospital to give birth. The "Hospital Experience - Pleased" Letter and "Hospital Experience - Disappointed" Letter gives moms a quick and easy way to let the hospital know what their birth experience was like -- did it meet their expectations or were they disappointed?
Breastfeeding Bill of Rights
The Breastfeeding Bill of Rights sets out "rights" a woman can request and expect during her hospital stay and delivery.
Hospital Experience - Pleased
Hospital Experience - Pleased Letter -- a comment letter for mom to return to the hospital describing the breastfeeding support, education and care she received during the birth of her baby.
Hospital Experience - Disappointed
Hospital Experience - Disappointed Letter -- a comment letter for mom to return to the hospital describing her dis-satisfaction with the breastfeeding support, education and care she received druing the birth of her baby.
We encourage you to make the Breastfeeding Bill of rights and Hospital Experience Letters available to moms in your classes, practices, community events, breastfeeding fairs, "rock & rest" stations, etc.
Encourage moms to fill out the appropriate letter and mail back to the hospital where she delivered her baby. Or collect the letters and mail them from your agency or task force. Help moms make their voices heard!
We hope that this will show hospital adminstrators that lactation consultants, knowledgeable staff and breastfeeding friendly practices are valued by moms and families using their hospital services.