Hospitals in Iowa have taken 10 steps forward in their work to promote breastfeeding among new mothers.

The Iowa Department of Public Health is using the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding initiative, a global standard for hospitals’ support of breastfeeding, to measure how Iowa hospitals are faring with mothers’ care for their babies.

“The program not only educates mothers but hospital staff as well on how to support breastfeeding mothers and babies,” said Holly Szcodronski of the Public Health Department’s Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion.

According to the department, the Ten Steps encourage hospital staff to support mothers in breastfeeding by providing them with education, helping initiate breastfeeding within an hour of birth, keeping mothers and babies together during the entire hospitalization, and providing mothers with information about breastfeeding support groups.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vital Signs report issued last week, Ten Steps participation among hospitals has increased from 2007 to 2013, the most recent year for which data are available. The percentage of hospitals following the program’s standards increased from 29 percent to 54 percent in the United States.

In Iowa alone, those numbers jumped from 12 percent in 2007 to 38 percent in 2013.

Szcodronksi said the national program does not have direct costs associated with it, although similar initiatives do have fees.

Deborah Hubbard, University of Iowa Health Care coordinator of lactation services for the Children’s and Women’s Services Department, said UI Health Care breastfeeding policies are based on the Ten Steps program.

“We have a written policy that is communicated with our staff,” Hubbard said. “When RNs come to the hospitals or come to children’s and women’s services, they go through an orientation program. Part of that program includes talking to them about breastfeeding.”

Hubbard said nurses get plenty of hands-on experience working with other staff and mothers. Staff members are encouraged to go to related conferences. She said the rates of mothers breastfeeding at the hospital have been in the high 80 percent range for years now.

Angela Shalla, UI Health Care director of maternal and neonatal services, said the rate is inclusive of mothers in the neonatal and intensive care unit. She said there is also a breast pump loaner program which ensures all babies have access to breast milk.

Hubbard said there were a variety of benefits to breastfeeding.

“For the baby, it’s the perfect food,” Hubbard said. “It’s got the right amount of fat, proteins, carbohydrates. It has living cells in it. It has everything that the baby needs, and probably one of the more remarkable things about it is that it changes to meet the needs of the baby.”

However, it doesn’t end there, she said.

“For the mother, it helps the uterus get back in shape, it burns off more calories, it decreases the risk of cancers, and it’s convenient,” she said. “For general society, the more women who breastfeed, we can save billions in health-care costs because babies are healthier. Mothers who are working with healthy babies are not taking as much time off work, so employers benefit, too.”

Hubbard also said the hospital has a milk bank, where mothers can donate breast milk to those who cannot produce it. They use donor milk instead of formula as long as the mother consents.

Shalla said the new Children’s Hospital on the horizon will also accommodate breastfeeding women and the Ten Steps program.