Baby-Friendly

Milford Regional Medical Center continues to take steps to become a Baby-Friendly hospital, which recognizes that breastfeeding is the healthiest way to feed your baby. This designation ensures that our Maternity Center offers an optimal level of care for infant feedings and mother/baby bonding. It creates opportunities to develop high performance work teams and build leadership skills among staff, promotes employee pride, enhances patient satisfaction and improves health outcomes.

Our nurses and trained lactation consultants will help you reach your breastfeeding goals. When you decide to have your baby at Milford Regional Medical Center, you will be encouraged to:

Before you deliver:

• Talk to your doctor about your desire to breastfeed
• Take part in our prenatal breastfeeding classes.
• Call our lactation consultants with your questions.

While in the hospital:

• Keep your baby in your room as much as possible.
• Early skin to skin contact is encouraged. It promotes bonding, helps maintain baby’s temperature, heart rate and blood sugar.
• Feed whenever the baby is giving signs of hunger. The nurses will help you with breastfeeding and expressing your breast milk if needed.
• If you decide to formula feed your baby, the nurses will help you prepare formula, review feeding amounts and show you how to pace bottlefeed
• Avoid using pacifiers, bottles or artificial nipples the first few weeks while your baby is learning to breastfeed.

After you go home:

• Breast milk is recommended for at least 6 months. Do not give baby any other food or drink during this time unless you check with your doctor.
• Call our lactation consultants with any questions @ 508-422-2960.
• Plan to come to our weekly mother’s group to get the support you need to reach your goals.

Learn more from our breastfeeding resources page.

Congratulations and we look forward to caring for you and your baby!