K.H.M.H.—a Certified Mother-Baby Friendly Medical Facility

Still of the matter of babies, at the maternity ward of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, there are posters and signs promoting the importance of breastfeeding. So much so that the institution has been certified as a mother-baby friendly medical facility and all members of the medical staff at the national referral hospital have undergone training in best practices for breastfeeding. Communications Manager Tylon Tillett says the campaign is still about “breast is best.”

Tylon Tillett

Tylon Tillett, Communications Manager, K.H.M.H.

“That means that you will not find anything in the hospital that is related to feeding a child—only breast. Breast is what we promote. If you look behind me, we have all our breastfeeding signs. Our entire staff is trained in how to do breastfeeding—the attendants, the guys around here, the nurses—all six hundred and fifty persons have gone through a training to certify us for this breastfeeding concept. So that is what we push so you wouldn’t find any products in here that is related to after feeding artificially.”

Reporter

“But what in terms of special cases because I think most if not all mothers would automatically opt for breastfeeding, but there are mothers who maybe don’t lactate as much or mothers who the babies aren’t latching on. What do you do in those cases?”

Tylon Tillett

“In those cases, there are different methods to address that. We still do breastfeeding; however, it might be by cup feeding. So the milk is expressed and the breast milk is still given to the baby via another method if there is an issue. So after the child leaves this facility, if for some reason, a situation still occurs that the child needs additional help, then that happens outside of here. But here, we have different methods to still get the breast milk to the child.”