Germany
From 2018-2019, Germany implemented the BBF initiative to evaluate the country’s current situation regarding the promotion of breastfeeding. BBF was conducted at the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture by the Gesund ins Leben network at the Federal Centre for Nutrition and National Breastfeeding Committee at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), in cooperation with Yale University. The goal was to develop evidence-based packages of measures in order to support the development and implementation of national breastfeeding programmes.
Key recommendations to promote breastfeeding in Germany were presented to decision makers in June 2019 as a call to action.
Key recommendations:
- Develop a national strategy to promote breastfeeding in Germany
- Develop and implement a joint communication strategy for the promotion of breastfeeding
- Implement standards of evidence-based breastfeeding support and counseling
- Standardize breastfeeding teaching content in the training of physicians and other relevant health professions, provided this has already been established in the respective training programmes. Proved task-based and competence-based further training and education of breastfeeding support and counseling content for physicians and other relevant health care professions and facilitators
- By setting up networks of all the local stakeholders to lower the barriers to access evidence-based breastfeeding counseling and support
- Encourage more compatible breastfeeding enabling environments at work, higher education and in vocational training by providing targeted information
- Review, document, and inform about regulations and practices related to the marketing of human milk substitutes
- Establish a systematic breastfeeding monitoring system in Germany
For further details, see the German BBF website:
Other BBF publications: Das internationale Forschungsvorhaben Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly. Untersuchung von Rahmenbedingungen zur Stillförderung (The international research project Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly. Investigation of conditions for breastfeeding).