​news from cheer

CHEERing Wins WABA Seed Grant
August 5, 2019
WABA (the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy) has awarded a prestigious Seed Grant to CHEERing in World Breastfeeding Week, to further our work with refugees in Greece.

In sync with WBW’s goal of “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding”, and a particular focus on fathers, CHEERing will use the funds to present sessions to engage refugee fathers in breastfeeding support and training at 3 refugee camps in Attika, and a maternity shelter in Athens.
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Sessions will take place in early fall 2019. Follow the CHEERing website for more developments!

Register for the CHAMPS conference!

July 8, 2019
Registration for the upcoming CHAMPS conference is open! See the flyer for more information and to register!

CHAMPS LAUNCHES IPE WITH UMMC

June 21, 2019
CHAMPS will be launching a breastfeeding education module across all seven of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s health professions schools thanks to a grant from the Bower Foundation. The Inter-Professional Education (IPE) unit on breastfeeding will contain video segments featuring real-life scenarios such as a prenatal clinic appointment, an in-hospital breastfeeding assessment, and a postpartum breastfeeding support group. The first IPE unit  is scheduled to be a part of the academic curriculum by fall 2020. ​

Alaska Native Medical Center Announces Baby-Friendly Designation

May 24, 2019
Congratulations to Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC) for gaining Baby-Friendly Designation! CHEER worked with the facility starting with its enrollment in the AI/AN CHAMPS project.

For more information about ANMC, please visit their website using the button below.

CHEER Launches 'CHEER in Greece' (CHEERING)

April 23, 2019
CHEERing provides direct service every week at Skaramagas, Oinofyta, and Eleonas refugee camps, in collaboration with other non-profit organizations, and intensive support at the Provocando la Paz shelter in central Athens. Each week, CHEERing staff weighs, measures, and tracks growth in babies, and offers support to mothers of young infants. They also provide sessions for refugee women about breastfeeding, sexual health, nutrition, and infant development - and much more.

Community Health Systems Names CHAMPS Hospital Leads as Employees of the Year​

March 13, 2019
CHAMPS is delighted to announce that Rene Simpson, BSN, IBCLC, Lactation Coordinator, and Jean Dunn, RN, CLC, OB Educator Coordinator, the Baby-Friendly leads at Merit Health Woman's and Merit Health River Oaks hospitals, respectively, in Mississippi, have received great honors from their corporate-level employer, Community Health Systems (CHS).
​Each year, CHS, which operates 116 hospitals nationally in 18 states, awards one employee at each hospital their Employee of the Year title. This year, Rene Simpson won the award for Merit Woman's, and Jean Dunn, for Merit River Oaks.
Rene and Jean were responsible for leading the Baby-Friendly effort at each of their hospitals, both of which gained Baby-Friendly designation in 2018. Merit Wesley in Mississippi also gained designation in 2018. All three hospitals are part of the CHAMPS initiative in Mississippi.

“It was truly humbling to be awarded Employee of the Year for Merit Health Woman’s Hospital. I am so blessed to be recognized for doing something I love! Supporting our mothers and babies on their breastfeeding journey is my passion,” said Rene.

Merit Health also recently assigned Rene the role of working with the remaining five Merit hospitals to help them achieve Baby-Friendly designation. This represents a great personal achievement and recognition for Rene and Jean, and a serious commitment to changing maternity practices and seeking Baby-Friendly designation by CHS.

Overall, 11 Mississippi hospitals, 25% of all the state's hospitals, are now Baby-Friendly designated, up from 0 in 2014.

CHEER becomes national voting member of the US Breastfeeding Committee (USBC)

February 7, 2019
CHEER is happy to announce that it has recently been accepted as a national voting member of the USBC, a coalition of organizations around the country whose shared missions are to promote supportive breastfeeding policies and practices.

​To learn more about the USBC, please visit their website using the button below.
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​Improved Maternity Care Practices Decrease Racial Gaps in Breastfeeding in the U.S. South

January 18, 2019
​A new paper published in Pediatrics links successful implementation of Baby-Friendly™ practices in the southern U.S. with increases in breastfeeding rates and improved, evidence-based care. The changes were especially positive for African-American women.
Between 2014 and 2017, 33 hospitals enrolled into the CHAMPS (Communities and Hospitals Advancing Maternity Practices) program out of Boston Medical Center’s Center for Health Equity, Education and Research, funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. All birthing hospitals in Greater New Orleans, and 18 in Mississippi, signed up. Breastfeeding initiation at CHAMPS hospitals rose from 66% to 75%, and, among African Americans, from 43% to 63%, over the 3 years. The gap between White and Black breastfeeding rates decreased by 9.6%.
​“US breastfeeding rates differ by race,” says Anne Merewood, PhD MPH, a Boston Medical Center researcher and the lead author on the study. “This is the first study that links better compliance with the WHO’s Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding to lower racial inequities across a large number of hospitals.”

New CHAMPS Grant from the Bower Foundation!

January 1, 2019
CHEER has received a new, 3-year grant from the Bower Foundation to continue work with Baby-Friendly designated Mississippi hospitals.
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​CHEER (the Center for Health Equity, Education, and Research at Boston University School of Medicine) has run Mississippi CHAMPS since 2014, working with communities and hospitals to support, promote, and increase breastfeeding. The program also helps hospitals to gain the coveted WHO Baby-Friendly Hospital title. Since 2014, 8 Mississippi hospitals have been designated Baby-Friendly, and breastfeeding rates across CHAMPS-enrolled hospitals in Mississippi have risen from 49% to 67%. Rates have particularly increased among African American women, from 33% to 56%.
“This new grant will help us to work directly with Baby-Friendly designated hospitals in Mississippi, to help them ingrain the new policies and practices, and to support them with ongoing training and data collection,” said Anne Merewood PhD MPH, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at BUSM, and Director of CHEER and CHAMPS. “Also, it will help us to work across Mississippi to engage statewide support.”

​Already, CHAMPS has a working relationship with WIC, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi, and MSPQC (the Mississippi Perinatal Quality Collaborative).
Merit Health Wesley
UMMC Jackson
Baptist Memorial Hospital North Mississippi
South Sunflower Medical Center
Community level support is provided by ROSE (Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere), a national organization supporting breastfeeding among women of color. Many other breastfeeding initiatives have also gotten off the ground in Mississippi since 2014, including a milk bank, and the opening of many Baby Cafes™ where women in the community can get support.
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“This work is really supporting a more humane and evidence-based approach to maternal child health at the hospital level – it’s about much more than breastfeeding,” says Dr Merewood. “But sometimes it takes time for new policies and practices to become accepted and routine. This new grant will help Mississippi hospitals to establish Baby-Friendly practices as the norm.” 
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2018 CHEER Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Kimarie Bugg!

December 17, 2018
CHEER is thrilled to announce the recipient of our 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award: Kimarie Bugg, DNP, RN, MPH, IBCLC, CLC, for her long-standing dedication to breastfeeding and Maternal Child health equity! Kimarie is the Co-Founder, President/CEO, and Change Leader for Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE), a nonprofit developed in 2011 to address breastfeeding inequities in the African-American community. CHEER’s Communities and Hospitals Advancing Maternity Practices (CHAMPS) program has partnered with ROSE since its incipiency in 2014, and has the pleasure to host Kimarie as our Community Engagement Director. Throughout her career, Kimarie has tirelessly served families, trained health care providers, managed programs, advised national efforts, and led the charge for breastfeeding health equity amongst typically underserved communities in the United States. In this, her life exemplifies exactly the kind of work CHEER seeks to uphold! 
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Rocky Boy's CHA: A Successful Health Priorities Meeting!

August 20, 2018
On July 18th, the Rocky Boy Health Board (RBHB) and the Chippewa Cree Wellness Coalition (CCWC) hosted the Community Health Priorities Meeting, with help from CHEER staff members, Jackie Berger and Kirsten Krane. A critical piece of the community input needed for a Community Health Assessment (CHA), the meeting was held to determine the community’s top health concerns. These health priorities are used to guide the CHA process going forward. 

Top Ten: Rocky Boy’s Community Health Priorities
1. Mental Health
2. Substance Use
3. Nutrition/Food Access/Hunger
4. Trauma
5. Healthcare and Public Health Infrastructure
6. Chronic Disease
7. Family Health
8. Access to Specialty Care
9. Poverty
10. Domestic Violence

CHAMPS at USBC's National Breastfeeding Coalitions Conference ​

August 6, 2018
CHAMPS was well represented at the USBC's National Breastfeeding Coalitions Conference this past weekend.  CHAMPS team members and consultants, Kimarie Bugg from Reaching our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE) and Camie Goldhammer, presented and their sessions are listed below:
  • CHAMPS: Bringing Baby-Friendly to the South, Camie Goldhammer, part of a Whole Group Session on National Initiatives
  • ROSE: Journey from Health Disparity to Health Equity in Reproductive Health, Kimarie Bugg, Breakfast Table Topic
  • The Indigenous Breastfeeding Counselor: Decolonizing Breastfeeding Education, Camie Goldhammer, part of a Peer Sharing Panel
For more information about the event, please visit the USCB website using the button below.

CHEER and The Bower Foundation Partner

August 1, 2017
CHEER received a 3-year grant from The Bower Foundation to support Mississippi birthing hospitals in their journey to achieve Baby-Friendly designation. The  $497,998 award will be used to increase the number of MS hospitals in CHAMPS by providing:
  • Training
  • Paperwork assistance
  • Data collection expertise
  • Outreach
  • Education
  • And more
The project will begin on 08/01/2017 and run until 07/31/2020.

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