Breastfeeding & Baby-Friendly Care

UNM Hospital was the first Albuquerque hospital to earn Baby-Friendly designation. That means our ;team of International Board-Certified Lactation Consultants are ready to support you in learning how to successfully breastfeed your baby.

Our board-certified lactation consultants and certified nurse midwives will guide and encourage you from baby's first feeding to using a breast pump. The Baby-Friendly initiative was created by the World Health Organization and UNICEF to promote breastfeeding and mother-baby bonding.

To meet with a lactation consultant, call 505-272-0480.

Benefits of Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is good for you and your baby. For you, breastfeeding can help reduce the risk of breast and ovarian cancers, depression and heart disease. For baby, it reduces the risk of developing infections, allergies, diabetes and more. Read more in English [PDF], Spanish [PDF], Vietnamese [PDF].

Breastfeeding also offers skin-to-skin contact between you and the baby. This snuggle time encourages mother-baby bonding and has proven health benefits. Learn more in English [PDF], Spanish [PDF] or Vietnamese [PDF].

If your newborn is healthy, keep your infant at your bedside at UNMH to learn how to respond to his or her needs, identify feeding cues and cuddle to help soothe and warm your baby. Your private room has a built-in guest bed allowing your partner or loved one to spend precious time with your baby, too.

Even if your infant needs to stay in the newborn intensive care unit, we’ll help you get to his or her bedside. We’ll also assist you in pumping breast milk and providing it to your baby.

How UNM Helps Moms Breastfeed

Our lactation team follows these Baby-Friendly steps to help you succeed in breastfeeding:

  1. Communicate a written breastfeeding policy to all health care staff regularly.
  2. Train all health care staff on how to implement this policy.
  3. Inform women during pregnancy about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
  4. Help new moms initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth.
  5. Show women how to breastfeed and maintain lactation, even if you’re separated from your infant.
  6. Feed infants only breast milk, unless medically indicated.
  7. Practice rooming in, which allows you and your infant to remain together 24 hours a day.
  8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
  9. Refrain from allowing breastfeeding infants to use pacifiers or artificial nipples.
  10. Foster breastfeeding support groups and refer new moms to them when they leave the hospital.

Get expert tips on how to breastfeed: English [PDF], Spanish [PDF] and Vietnamese [PDF].

Get Support at the Lactation Clinic

During pregnancy or after birth, ask our lactation experts how to:

  • Position and latch your baby.
  • Produce enough milk.
  • Nurse more comfortably.
  • Breast-feed after a C-section.
  • Nurse a premature, sick or special-needs infant.
  • Use a breast pump.
  • Introduce solid foods when your baby is six months old.
  • Wean your baby.

The lactation clinic is open Monday through Saturday. Invite your partner or loved one to appointments, which typically last 45 to 60 minutes. Interpreter services are available.

Make an Appointment 

To schedule an appointment, call us at 505-272-2245

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