Katie Jones, Senior Midwife and member of the Careline team at Danone Baby Nutrition, answers questions about making innovation relevant in practice and reviews recent products that can help solve common problems.
Q. How is ‘innovation’ relevant to midwives, in the context of everyday practice?A. Innovation lies at the heart of midwifery. Whether it is in researching new techniques or streamlining protocols, putting clinical or technological innovations into practice or providing the front-line interface through which policy changes and social advances are made, midwives have been at the forefront of change for as long as the profession has been in existence.
This was reiterated at the recent International Confederation of Midwives Triennial Congress, in Durban, South Africa, 19-23 June 2011, where one of the key themes was ‘Strengthening Midwives and Midwifery Practice’. Innovation in leadership, in governance, in financing the profession, in technological advances and in dealing with the ethical challenges they present were all seen as crucial to making midwifery a stronger profession and in improving its practice.
Q. What recent improvements have there been in the nutrition of infants in hospital?A. Breastfeeding is best for babies, but for mothers who do not wish to or cannot breastfeed, the choice of infant formula should be based upon safety and nutritional value. This is especially important for newborn babies, who are most vulnerable to infection. Manufacturing ready-touse
bottle feeds for use in hospital in an aseptic environment prevents bacterial contamination. They must then be sterilised and packaged in completely tamper-proof bottles.
Cow & Gate hospital formula feeds are now produced using Ultra Heat Treatment (UHT) sterilisation, a rapid, high temperature pasteurisation process, and then sealed into sterilised plastic bottles in a protective atmosphere. This improves the colour and taste of the milk and maintains its nutritional integrity.
Safety and nutritional integrity have always been of upmost importance to Cow & Gate.
Q. What products can help midwives reduce the impact of care on the environment?A. The health service has long been at the forefront of public sector initiatives on carbon reduction and sustainability. Since the publication of the NHS carbon reduction strategy in 2009
1 most healthcare providers have introduced measures to significantly reduce their carbon footprint.
Suppliers and partners of the NHS can and should contribute to this effort. Cow & Gate have shown their commitment to this process with a range of products that reduce production wastage. For instance its new hospital formula feed bottles are all made of recyclable polypropylene (code 5) and can be recycled using standard procedures. All the outer packaging
is made from recycled materials and the overall carbon footprint of the bottles and packaging has been reduced by up to 15 per cent
2.
