Baby Friendly Spaces: Holistic Approach for Pregnant, Lactating Women and Their Very Young Children in Emergency

The Baby Friendly Spaces is a model of intervention for a holistic program to support pregnant, lactating women and their children in emergency situations. 

The Baby Friendly Spaces objectives are:

• Prevent the increase of malnutrition, morbidity and mortality rates
• Help the family to adapt care practices to the emergency and post-emergency context
• Improve the well-being of pregnant women, infants, young children and their mothers/caregivers, taking into account life experiences, past and present difficulties
• Provide a safe and private space for pregnant, lactating women and their infants
• Help families to facilitate child development and survival
• Prevent or reduce the negative effects of unsolicited and unmonitored distributions of breast milk substitutes
• Provide appropriate and sustainable solutions for infants for whom breastfeeding is not an option 

Therefore, the Baby Friendly Space’s main objective and line is to take care of the mother/caregiver in order to support her/him to take care of the child/infant.

Baby Friendly Spaces do not only focus on breastfeeding and the child. The goal of the BFS is a holistic psychosocial program that aims at providing comprehensive support to children and their caregivers who are facing emergency situations.