As we celebrate World Breastfeeding Week, Madigan Army Medical Center has great news for breastfeeding families -- breastfeeding support is moving in as a mission priority.
At Madigan, you will see more breastfeeding initiation, more specifically trained staff and providers, more access to international board certified lactation consultants, and a significant decrease in sick child visits as well as families receiving best-practice care.
At Joint Base Lewis-McChord overall, you will see more pumping/lactation rooms springing up, and more leadership prepared to support their servicemembers coming back to work. Due to the new maternity policy allowing servicemembers 12 weeks of maternity leave, new mothers can build up a greater amount of milk supply before returning to duty.
The Army is raising the bar to maximize resources, and to increase breastfeeding success, as both civilian and military hospitals are seeing a short-term and long-term return on their investment on this very renewable resource. Hospitals and medical treatment facilities across the nation are increasingly implementing the World Health Organization's 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding in order to become consistent in their care, and unified in their mission. This is a best practice method which involves facilities giving the very best care for mothers and babies, while helping them increase their success in breastfeeding, and ongoing optimal health.
Madigan is quickly shining as a leader in this area. Servicemembers are talking about the presence of support.
"We now have improved maternity leave and a written flexible work plan, [which is] a working contract between leaders and their Soldier-moms [that] goes in their file. Everyone wins," said Spc. Gloria Panaitov, the Soldier representative for Madigan's Breastfeeding Lactation Support Task Force. Women account for 15.3 percent of active duty servicemembers.
Amber Johnson, an international board-certified lactation consultant, details seeing an increase in starting to breastfeed, especially with the servicemember-mom population.
"Active-duty moms now feel like they have more of a choice regarding breastfeeding their babies. They have more time at home, and they are more likely to be supported once they've returned to duty. Before the new policy, they often wouldn't even start breastfeeding, or would only give a few days of colostrum," she said.
"In a recent situation, a mother was having her fifth baby, and had never breastfed before. She now has a TRICARE-provided pump, has 12 weeks off of work, and can pump at work with the support of her leadership. This will be her first breastfed baby," said Johnson. "This is very exciting. Big strides are being made."
Some fathers shared with Madigan lactation consultants that the changes to breastfeeding help and policies are amazing and have helped influence some of them to decide to remain a military family.
Military families can find more information on breastfeeding support at http://www.mamc.amedd.army.mil/clinical/obgyn/breastfeeding.aspx.
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