Barton Health Gets Across the Baby-Friendly Finish Line

“I received a voicemail on a Friday afternoon from Melissa Cho, the Director of Accreditation at BFUSA, saying, ‘If you have a moment, please give us a call.’ I was afraid she was going to tell me something was wrong, or that we were missing something in our designation process.”

That’s how Adam Grey, the Manager of the Family Birthing Center at Barton Health in South Lake Tahoe, California, remembers the suspenseful moment in December 2024 when he was awaiting word from BFUSA, hoping his team’s months of hard work had paid off. Happily, when he called Melissa back, she offered her hearty congratulations that the Barton team had indeed achieved Baby-Friendly designation.

“I immediately hung up the phone and ran to tell my staff, and then I ran to tell our chief nursing officer. Everyone was incredibly excited. Yeah, it was a big day,” he recalls. “It was very gratifying because Baby-Friendly is not an easy designation to get. There are a lot of parts, and they hold you to a very high standard, which I appreciate.”

For Grey, it was especially gratifying because of his own personal journey. He had gone back to school to become a nurse in 2008 after a career in the arts. He then spent ten years working at Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles, first in med surg, then as a labor nurse. That’s when he first developed his passion for women’s health and the family birth experience, which he readily acknowledges is a unique perspective for a male nurse.

“One thing I focused on was bringing the father back to the bedside for the birth,” Grey reflects. “A lot of times, the dad can kind of feel out of place, even though it’s their child’s birth as well. So, I tried to empower them to take part, to coach their partner, to tell their partner how amazing they are. It’s really lovely to see them experience the birth as partners, as opposed to having the dad separated from the experience.”

Despite the tremendous learning experience at Cedar Sinai, Grey gradually grew weary of the fast pace and high volumes of the big city hospital. When he was presented with an opportunity to be a supervisor at a hospital in the small mountain town where he had grown up – Lake Tahoe – he jumped at the chance.

The Baby-Friendly process was already underway when Grey joined the Barton team in 2021. His predecessor, Tanya Sanders, had laid the groundwork, and then he took over as Manager of the Birthing Center and the facility’s Baby-Friendly leader when she left the hospital in 2023.

“The nice thing about the Baby-Friendly process was that it identified and validated the things that we were already doing right and then gave us some opportunities where we could strengthen our practice,” he says. “It was great to realize all the things we were already doing well, but it also challenged us to think bigger and consider what more we could do beyond the hospital itself.”

One of those areas of opportunity materialized shortly after the designation was conferred. Since there are not extensive resources for breastfeeding support available in the Lake Tahoe community, Donna Fischer, RN, IBCLC, took it upon herself to launch a free breastfeeding support group, which she or her fellow lactation consultant, Roma Holt, RN, IBCLC, will lead each week alongside a Mommy & Me class at a center across the street from the hospital.

Fischer has been at Barton Health for ten years, having previously worked at another Baby-Friendly designated hospital, Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center in Carson City, Nevada. So, she was familiar with the Baby-Friendly process and the possibilities it offers.

I was used to having support groups for the community in my previous position,” she says. “So, this seemed like the natural thing to do. I’m really proud of it and I hope it’s something the community likes.”

Fischer wasn’t expecting much of a turnout for the first session in early January, so she was thrilled when seven moms and babies showed up. One mom in particular stood out.

“One mom came up to me, and she was almost in tears,” Fischer reflects. “She said, ‘I can’t tell you enough how much I love having the opportunity to come to this group.’ Then she went on to tell me that she doesn’t have family in town, and wasn’t sure she was doing anything right. She said, ‘I love that you guys put this together and that we have this for our for our community.’”

“That really struck me,” Fischer exclaims. “I’ve always felt with lactation and breastfeeding that if you can help just one person, that’s satisfaction enough.”

Grey points to Fischer’s initiative as just one example of his team’s commitment to excellence and serving their patients.

“This was not something she did to check a box for the designation,” he says. “This was something she felt was needed by the community and she made it happen. It really speaks to the collegial nature of the work in this wonderful, small, incredible hospital.”