The Birth and Beyond California program provides women with the support and resources necessary to initiate and maintain exclusive breastfeeding starting at birth. The program provides effective, evidence-based breastfeeding support modeled after the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative and Loma Linda University’s Perinatal Services Network’s Birth and Beyond Project. The program aims to make it possible for women to initiate breastfeeding while in the hospital and exclusively breastfeed during the entire hospital stay and after discharge. The program conducts hospital administrator trainings, hospital staff trainings, train-the-trainer workshops, and organizes and facilitates hospital breastfeeding network group meetings. Health care providers in community hospitals benefit from this program by having access to up-to-date, evidence-based information and technical assistance on ways to offer and measure outcomes related to breastfeeding support. In addition, breastfeeding leads to improved maternal-child bonding, which contributes to optimal early child-development. Birth and Beyond California is being piloted in areas with the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates.

The goal of Birth and Beyond California is to provide effective, evidence-based breastfeeding support to all mothers delivering babies in hospitals in California in order to increase the percentage of mothers who are able to breastfeed exclusively starting at birth.

The project was implemented in eight hospitals in early 2008, with a goal of adding 12 new hospitals every 6 months through 2011. The evidence-based breastfeeding model has been successfully taught and implemented in all participating hospitals; however, a formal evaluation of the program has not yet been conducted.