If you want to take another stab at the question, have a go at this before reading on further!
The criteria for a hospital’s Baby Friendly accreditation include:
- Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
- Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.
- Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
- Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within one half-hour of birth.
- Show mothers how to breastfeed and maintain lactation, even if they should be separated from their infants.
- Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breastmilk, not even sips of water, unless medically indicated.
- Practice rooming in – that is, allow mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day.
- Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
- Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.
- Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.
The program also restricts use by the hospital of free formula or other infant care aids provided by formula companies and recommends that when formula is medically needed, it should be given in a small cup or spoon, rather than a bottle and should only be used to supplement breastfeeding.
Since the program’s inception, approximately 15,000 facilities in more than 152 countries have been inspected and accredited as “Baby-Friendly.”
There is nothing in the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative statement that raises the issue of exclusive breastfeeding duration. Hence the best answer for the question is: Exclusive breastfeeding without any other food is preferred unto 4 months. In any case this is false because the recommendation is to continue exclusive breastfeeding for a period of six months.
