MU Women's and Children's Hospital in Columbia is one of three Missouri hospitals that will join the Best Fed Beginnings program for a 22-month period.
It's designed to increase the breastfeeding rate nationwide. The National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality selected 90 hospitals from 29 states to participate in the program. Spokesperson Jonathan Small says the goal is to help hospitals better support a new mother's choice to breastfeed.
"We are also interested in having this project address some of the inequalities in terms of the breastfeeding rates in certain states being lower than others, as well across socioeconomic lines," said Small.
The other two hospitals that are selected in Missouri are Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, and Truman Medical Center in Kansas City.