Kit & Contacts

Equipment and Information that can help the GP in supporting Infant Feeding

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Read Codes

There are at least 80 Read Codes pertaining to infant feeding. Appropriate coding of feeding-related scenarios could help to identify trends and improve data collection and audit. Infant feeding status and problems can and should be coded in the same way as other clinical situations.

Useful codes:

  • A cluster of codes starting 64.. allow coding of how the infant is fed at various ages e.g. ‘breast fed at 6 months – 6441’, ‘breast and supplement fed at 3 months – 6433’. Use of this cluster provides multiple options for accurately recording feeding methods and can be integrated into templates, for example those used for the newborn or 6-8 week checks.
  • A series of codes starting Xa4 are available for latch-related entries. These could prove useful particularly in areas where there is integration of clinical systems between GPs and health visitors, midwives and infant feeding co-ordinators.

List of Useful Contacts for the GP Supporting Infant Feeding

Published April 2017, Reviewed 30th September 2019