Breastfeeding and human milk have been advocated as the normative standards for feeding infants of all gestational ages, including the high risk newborn infants. Nevertheless, exclusive breastfeeding rates at hospital discharge in the general population of newborns and in the subpopulation of high risk newborn infants are not yet satisfactory. A successful promotion of breastfeeding among both healthy and high risk newborn infants requires multicomponent effective interventions. First, health professionals need to improve their knowledge on lactation, to acquire better skills to manage breastfeeding problems and to commit to preparing evidence based clinical protocols that would not hinder breastfeeding and the use of human milk in everyday hospital practices. Finally, we must recognize that all these efforts will be facilitated by an improved staff attitude towards breastfeeding.
