‘Baby Friendly’ award credits QMU’s support for families and infants
Queen Margaret University’s Health Visiting programme has been formally reaccredited as ‘Baby Friendly’ by the UK committee for UNICEF.
QMU first achieved the accreditation in 2022 in recognition of its commitment to embedding best practice in infant feeding and parent-infant relationship support within its PgDip Person Centred Practice Health Visiting course. The 2025 reaccreditation highlights the University’s continued success in maintaining UNICEF UK’s Baby Friendly standards, ensuring that the latest cohort of students is equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to support families.
The UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI), introduced in 1994, has worked with public services for over 30 years to ensure that all babies get the best possible start in life. In the UK, the initiative supports maternity, neonatal, community, and hospital-based children’s services, as well as universities, to strengthen education for future midwives and health visitors.
Lisa Luhanga, BFI Lead at QMU, said: “Infant feeding is a core and essential element of the health visitor’s role, so it’s vital that these skills are embedded into training from the outset.
“As a university, having this Baby Friendly award for our programme is hugely important as it raises the profile of infant feeding within health visitor education, enhances the standing of QMU with both NHS Trusts and prospective students, and increases our graduates’ confidence and employability. Trusts particularly value staff who already have this knowledge and do not require additional infant feeding training."
This reaccreditation demonstrates that QMU continues to meet UNICEF UK’s high standards, preparing students to promote, protect and support breastfeeding, while also helping parents to build close and loving relationships with their babies. While this is an essential component of health visiting, we believe it should also have a place in other health disciplines – including paramedic science, broader healthcare courses, and even primary education, and this is certainly something we are looking into at QMU.
An informal ceremony to celebrate the reaccreditation was held at QMU in August, where Janet Dalzell, UNICEF UK’s Professional Lead for Scotland, formally presented the award to QMU’s BFI team including Lisa Luhanga, BFI Lead; Lynne Darling, Health Visiting Programme Lead; and Jenny Garner, Integrated Community Nursing Programme Lead. They were joined by QMU’s Head of Nursing and Paramedic Science Division, Ruth Magowan and the Principal of the University, Sir Paul Grice.
Janet Dalzell, said: “The benefits of breastfeeding for babies, mothers and public health are well established. It protects children from a vast range of illnesses including infection, diabetes, asthma, heart disease and cot death (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), as well as obesity. It also protects mothers from breast and ovarian cancers and heart disease, and supports the mother-baby relationship and the mental health of both baby and mother. But, despite explicit commitment to promoting breastfeeding in the UK, there are still gaps in provision of support and rates remain lower than in many other high-income countries.
“In the UK, most women want to breastfeed, but many face difficulties early on and eight out of ten stop before they want to. The provision of face-to-face, ongoing, and predictable breastfeeding support by trained personnel, starting during pregnancy and continuing through the postnatal period, can increase the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding. There is strong evidence for the Baby Friendly programme as a key intervention for supporting breastfeeding, which is why this initiative is so important for the future health and relationships or mothers and babies.”
Following the reaccreditation, QMU’s BFI team is aiming to further expand its efforts and help normalise breastfeeding across the wider university and community. The next milestone is achieving the UNICEF Sustainability Gold Award - the highest level of accreditation under the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative. This award recognises services that not only deliver excellence, but also sustain long-term best practice in supporting infant feeding and parent–infant relationships. It represents a commitment to ensuring consistently high standards of care for future generations, with the Baby Friendly Initiative fully embedded into the service’s leadership, culture, and systems.
For more information about the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative, visit: www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly.
For further media information please contact Emma Reekie, Media Relations and Content Officer, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, E: ereekie@qmu.ac.uk (copy to pressoffice@qmu.ac.uk)
