Dr. Ellen Chetwynd (Center for Women’s Health-Wellness) received new funding from the North Carolina Breastfeeding Coalition for the project “Transforming Clinics for Better Breastfeeding Outcomes.” Dr. Jennifer Yourkavitch is co-principal investigator on the project.
North Carolina Breastfeeding Coalition (NCBC) is North Carolina’s statewide breastfeeding advocacy group. They foster a decentralized network of local coalitions, agencies and organizations to normalize and support breastfeeding. The North Carolina Breastfeeding Friendly Clinics project will improve access to clinical support of breastfeeding in under-served communities by deploying a network of local breastfeeding advocates in the Wilmington and then the Cherokee areas of the state, focusing on clinics serving high risk populations. They will partner with these clinics to: 1) improve their breastfeeding support, 2) become Mother-Baby Friendly Clinic Award recipients, and 3) provide NCBC with direct feedback on the award process to facilitate quality improvement and capacity building. The Center for Women’s Health and Wellness will subcontract with NCBC to provide research assistance. We will develop data collection tools to use for surveying providers and clinic patients, as well as focus group schedules for qualitative key informant interviews. They will analyze the resulting data and create reports that can be used for quality assessment, monitoring, and evaluation. Dispersement of data results will include presentation to a broader audience through publication or conference presentations.
