Indiana: Engaging existing community relationships to collectively impact community breastfeeding support

Among Indiana infants, 72.6% are breastfed in the hospital, 39.2% breastfed at six months and 20.9% breastfed at twelve months. Since the launch of Indiana's Comprehensive Nutrition and Physical Activity Plan, 2010-2020 in 2011, a network of state and local partners have worked to implement breastfeeding objectives focusing on initiation, duration, and exclusivity of breastfeeding. The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) provided funding to 14 Community Based Organizations (CBO) in 11 Indiana counties (Allen, Bartholomew, Elkhart, Johnson, Lake, Madison, Marion, Monroe, St. Joseph, Vanderburgh, and Vigo) to provide services and support breastfeeding mothers after hospital discharge. The goal was to strengthen local capacity to increase and/or enhance the type of services provided by CBOs to support breastfeeding and overcome barriers to breastfeeding that women and families may experience. The CBOs participated in a statewide breastfeeding collaborative to increase skills and strengthen capacity. A sharing network was established to facilitate discussion and share information and resources. Other key partners include the Indiana State Breastfeeding Coalition and local breastfeeding coalitions. The 14 CBOs reached rural and urban communities and provide services to disparate populations, such as non-Hispanic Blacks, Hispanics, Burmese refugees, and teen age moms. The CBOs will receive funding to enhance their capacity to implement a variety of breastfeeding strategies. Their selected strategies include opening drop-in centers, home visits, phone and in-person consultation support to breastfeeding mothers, purchasing needed supplies to outfit drop-in centers, starting minority breastfeeding support groups, establishing pumping areas in community schools and worksites, and providing Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) training. ISDH worked with an Evaluation Team to capture the number of clients served at each CBO, demographic information on clients, and the role of CBOs and their services offered to support breastfeeding mothers. Successes and lessons learned through the experiences of the COBs will be shared.