Women and Children’s Hospital celebrates National Breastfeeding Month as West Virginia’s first milk depot
PRESS RELEASE:
CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital is proud to partner with the Mid-Atlantic Mother’s Milk Bank to become the first breastmilk depot in West Virginia. A breastmilk depot is a designated site that allows approved donors to easily drop off their frozen breastmilk donations.
“Human milk is the best nutrition for all newborns, especially for our smallest and sickest babies,” said Elizabeth Copenhaver, MD, Pediatric Newborn Hospitalist. “We are excited to be able to provide human milk to babies in our community who need it the most.”
Anyone who may be interested in donating breastmilk can learn more about the screening and donation process by visitinghttps://midatlanticmilkbank.org/donate. CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital is now collecting donations from prescreened donors! To schedule a drop off time, donors should contact the Mid-Atlantic Mother’s Milk Bank(phone: 412-281-4400) or email: info@midatlanticmilkbank.org.
In 2023, CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital became the first hospital in West Virginia, and one of the first 10 hospitals nationally, to join CHAMPS (Communities and Hospitals Advancing Maternity Practices) a hospital-based quality improvement collaborative to improve maternity care practices supportive of breastfeeding.
“West Virginia has consistently been ranked one of the lowest breastfeeding states in the United States,” Dr. Copenhaver said. “This is unfortunate because breastfeeding is known to have lifelong positive health impacts for both mother and newborn. CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital faculty and staff work together to ensure the first hour after birth is uninterrupted as well as rooming in during the entire birth hospitalization. These along with other CHAMPS quality improvement initiatives are optimizing the breastfeeding success rates for all our patients.”
Additionally, CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital now has 17 mother-baby nurses who are Certified Breastfeeding Specialists. These nurses have completed additional training to improve bedside breastfeeding support and work alongside our lactation consultants.
About Charleston Area Medical Center Health System: Established in 1972, CAMC is a nonprofit, 1,138-bed, regional referral center made up of seven hospitals CAMC General Hospital, CAMC Greenbrier Valley Medical Center, CAMC Memorial Hospital, CAMC Plateau Medical Center, CAMC Charleston Surgical Hospital, CAMC Teays Valley Hospital and CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital, CAMC Cancer Center (with three locations: Beckley, Charleston and Hurricane), the CAMC Institute for Academic Medicine and the CAMC Foundation. More than 1,500 providers are members of the medical staff of CAMC, which is also West Virginia’s premiere medical teaching facility, hosting, on any given day, more than 1,000 students in programs leading to degrees or certifications in health professions. For more information, visit camc.org.
About Vandalia Health
Vandalia Health, headquartered in Charleston, is a multi-state health system with locations across West Virginia as well as in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Made up of CAMC Health System, Davis Health System and Mon Health System, Vandalia Health has 17 hospitals, over 220 ambulatory locations, more than 13,000 employees and more than 2,000 doctors and advanced practice providers. For more information or a map of locations visit vandaliahealth.org.
