Baby-friendly practices increase exclusive breastfeeding rates.Implementing these practices and overcoming long held beliefs and practices can be challenging.A well thought-out plan of creating policies,education tools,messaging/scripting,documentation,and outcome measures encourages the successful transition to baby-friendly practices.this hospital's perinatal core measure for exclusive breastfeeding during hospitalization was 76% in 2011.though time and effort,barriers to baby-friendly practices can be overcome,and hospitals can achieve its-and the public's-goal of increasing breastfeeding rates