Breastfeeding Essentials, Essential Update and Essentials for Doctors are educational courses designed for health care professionals working with women antenatally and postnatally and in the community. The courses cover all aspects of the 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and the 7-Point Plan supporting breastfeeding in the community care setting, and are therefore suitable for staff education as required by the Baby Friendly Hospitals’ Initiative accreditation process.

Breastfeeding Essentials is intended to be used for staff who have yet to complete their initial education as required by Step 2 of the 10 Steps and the 7-Point Plan. Essential Update has been developed for use in hospitals that are already accredited and want more in-depth educational materials to maintain staff interest and enthusiasm. Breastfeeding Essentials for Doctors has been developed specifically for the needs of medical personnel working with mothers and babies in the peripartum period.

The Essentials series are flexible learning courses developed specifically around the access needs of busy health professionals. They are delivered wholly over the Internet, where participants are able to access their study course anywhere, anytime from any computer connected to the Internet. The modular design allows participants to be flexible, completing small sections of the coursework whenever they have available time.

The Essentials series modules have interactive content, including graphics, graphs, diagrams, video and links to other Internet sites where appropriate. At appropriate times there are Unit-specific suggestions to review policies or procedures. Within each module are short multiple-choice self-test questions, or crosswords, or cloze paragraphs, or scenarios or interactive case studies. Participants receive feedback on most of these activities; the results are not recorded and are designed to focus the participants’ attention on the content covered. This interactivity increases participant enjoyment of the learning process and retention of information.

Communication within the course is an integral component. In Breastfeeding Essentials and Essential Update participants are able to email the course facilitator and use a forum facility that encourages participants to discuss topical issues.

An assessment component, comprised of automatically-graded, multiple-choice questions based on the objectives of the course, confirms that the course objectives were attained.