The Gold standard. Baby Friendly Initiative at UON achieves the top grade

Creating a community-wide culture of excellent baby care and feeding support moves up a grade for Midwifery at the University of Northampton (UON).

This week, the Midwifery team were awarded Gold from UNICEF’s Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) in recognition of their commitment to sustainable baby and family care for students and staff. University of Northampton joins only eight other Midwifery degree providers across the UK who have Gold BFI status.

The BFI programme informs families about evidence-based breast and formula feeding and provides training in this area to health students and professionals.

Although primarily about infant nutrition, BFI also promotes relationship building between mothers and babies that can positively impact a child’s brain development, giving them the best possible start in life.

This means that, since first receiving BFI accreditation in 2016, Midwifery students at UON have gained extra skills that enhance their professional knowledge and the care they give.

The BFI Gold Standard takes the next step up from curriculum-centred learning by encompassing sustainability to benefit students and members of the community.

Lara Strangwood, Senior Lecturer in Midwifery (seated on the left of the image next to UON’s Deputy Vice Chancellor and ‘Baby Friendly Guardian’ and champion Professor Shân Wareing), is UON’s BFI lead. She explains what gaining Gold means: “Following a lot of work, dedication and commitment, it is marvellous to announce we are at this point. Having BFI Gold demonstrates that we are working toward a higher standard of care for all babies and their families, and that our students are ready to work in BFI-accredited hospitals.

“For UON’s BFI team, Gold means we will constantly evaluate the programme and our students, we have a leadership team in place, and look at the wider impact of good family and infant care for the University and beyond.

“Having Gold will also influence projects we are planning, such as creating a Baby Friendly Café here on campus. Although still early days, we are looking at this being a support network for UON families and those in our local community around infant feeding supported by our students who could use this as a placement opportunity.

“For me and all the teams within the Faculty of Health, Education and Society, we come here to make a difference to people’s lives, their health and lifelong wellbeing. BFI is the very first step on that positive trajectory, and achieving Gold status reflects how importantly and seriously at UON we take infant and family care.”

Find out more about the Midwifery degree at University of Northampton.