[Experience of the Baby Friendly Hospital initiative]

In the study is analyzed and described the initiative called "Initiative Baby Friendly Hospitals", a program which started in Brazil, 1992. This initiative intends to support, to protect and to promote the breastfeeding as proposed in a meeting in 1990 in Florence, Italy, which was promoted by WHO and UNICEF. The basic goal of this initiative is to mobilize health professionals and hospital or maternity workers for changing their routines and conducts aiming to prevent the early wean. The health establishments are evaluated based on the "ten steps for success of breastfeeding, a group of goals created in the same meeting. In Brazil, the evaluation is coordinated by the Federal Government through the PNIAM (Programa Nacional de Incentivo ao Aleitamento Materno). A baby friendly hospital, if approved, receives from the Minister of Health, a Federal Governmental Agency (SUS) a differential payment for childbirth assistance and prenatal accompaniment, 10% and 40%, more respectively. Until 1998 year there were 103 baby friendly hospitals in Brazil, with the majority of them located in the northeast area (68.1%). However, taking in accounting the number of 5650 hospitals linked to SUS in the country, less than 2.0% are baby friendly hospitals. On the basis of the experience and according with PNIAM data the implementation of the ten steps and the incentive to breastfeeding through baby friendly hospitals have resulted in a significant increase of breastfeeding incidence and duration in Brazil.