The health department organises an activity in Jandía to promote breastfeeding

Jandía's Basic Health Area, within Fuerteventura's Health Sector, organised a meeting with families who breastfeed, within the activities and workshops taking place during World Breastfeeding Week. The event took place on the Cetacean Path in Morro Jable to give visibility to breastfeeding as a beneficial practice for both mother and child. The event included photo sessions and dance activities with babies and families shared their experiences to strengthen the support network for breastfeeding and nursing. The activity was organised by the Breastfeeding Committee of Jandía's Basic Health Area, with health professionals from Morro Jable’s Health Centre and Costa Calma's doctor's practice, following the recommendation from the IHAN initiative of Fuerteventura's Health Service. Through this initiative, Jandía's Basic Health Area joined up the activities organised for World Breastfeeding Week, which, this year, was advertised with the slogan “Helping with breastfeeding: making a difference for working mothers and fathers”, to highlight the importance of strong support to mothers when they wish to go back to work, and carry on breastfeeding, if and as long as they want to.

IHAN certification and acknowledgement

All of Fuerteventura's health centres have the certification for the 3D phase of the IHAN programme (Initiative for Humanisation of Birth and Breastfeeding Assistance), which is part of the international project of the WHO-UNICEF Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. With this certification, Fuerteventura's General Hospital and all the island's health centres have now reached the next to last of the four phases of the project, and are confirmed as centres that are committed to the humanisation and improvement of their practices to care for breastfeeding and the health of mothers and babies. The IHAN was put in place by the WHO and UNICEF to motivate hospitals and health services, especially maternity wards, to adopt practices that protect, promote and support exclusive breastfeeding from birth; the main objective is to promote and support the best possible start in life, with optimal practices in the care for pregnancy, birth, neonatal period and more particularly, breastfeeding.