Top Breastfeeding hospital in California

For the second year in a row, El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California had the highest rate of breastfeeding moms, a whopping 95%.  This is fantastic news, and I’m excited because that’s where all of my patients deliver their babies. It’s a testimony to the superb and enormously dedicated lactation consultants who spend hours with moms to help support them. 
 
There’s also a drop in lactation center classes and lactation consultants available.  I know the nurses who spearheaded this movement, and I’m grateful to them for reviewing my Personal Guide to Breastfeeding.
 
It takes a coordinated and comprehensive effort to achieve these kinds of results and I applaud the commitment of the nurses to help moms.  I also know that it’s the education and ongoing support that has made the difference.  I also suspect that it’s the practical and reasonable approach that recognizes that sometimes, moms can’t exclusively breastfeed and need to have a back up plan which includes pumped milk and formula.  As a pediatrician from the same hospital said, "I’d rather have a woman use formula to supplement her breastfeeding for 8, 9 or 12 months and feel successful, then have them give up because they felt like a failure because an overly zealous person pushed for exclusive breastfeeding without any backup plan if it didn’t work."
 
That’s why I don’t get all worked up about the diaper bags with formula samples, because in my experience, it’s been helpful to my patients to continue breastfeeding.