UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) visited the College of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare on 18 January 2017 to assess Infant Feeding teaching. They awarded the College the BFI accreditation with outstanding results and feedback. The College first received the BFI accreditation in December 2013.

The accreditation assessment was carried out by Anne Woods and Carmel Duffy of UNICEF. Jancis Shepherd (Lead Midwife for Education), Andrea Aras-Payne (senior midwifery lecturer and course leader) and Helen Simpson (senior midwifery lecturer and lead for BFI accreditation) were interviewed about the College’s teaching, processes, assessments and links with practice.

In addition, students nearing the end of their three-year midwifery course were interviewed on the care they would provide to mothers in practice, such as communication skills, general advice, how they would deal with difficulties and how they would undertake an assessment.

Alongside the assessment was an infant feeding study day with expert speakers. Louise Moran from La leche League spoke about supporting breastfeeding mothers; Helen Crawley from First steps Nutrition talked about conflicts of interest; Gillian Weaver gave an update on milk banks; and Wendy Jones, a pharmacist from the Breastfeeding Network, gave a presentation on drugs in breast milk.

The UNICEF assessors fed back outstanding results with most questions scoring 95% or 100%. Overall the College had an 80% pass mark. The assessors told students how impressed they were with their knowledge, and they hope to come back to film our staff and students to inspire others on their journey towards achieving BFI status.

Achieving this reaccreditation reaffirms UWL as a leading provider of evidence-based infant feeding teaching and practice, delivering the gold standard to its students. This ultimately enables mothers and babies to be effectively supported to achieve successful breastfeeding and brings numerous health benefits to mothers, babies and society.