Sustaining The Gains Of Exclusive Breast Feeding

By Yinka Atolagbe

Today marks the end of the celebrations of this year's World Breast Feeding Week. The United Nations in 2002 set aside the week long celebrations to draw attention to the need to breast feed babies from day one. Eight years on, global attention is once again being drawn to the importance of breast feeding and the benefits of exclusive breast feeding for the child and its importance to mothers as well.

 

Before the global observance of the week, there was a health initiative known as the “Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative”, BFHI, which was launched in 1992, by the World Health Organisation, WHO and United Nations Children 's Funds, UNICEF . The strategy was launched to strengthen maternity practices to support, protect and sustain breastfeeding. The baby-friendly intervention involves improved maternity services and education of mothers on the importance and benefits of exclusive breast feeding. The strategy entails encouraging mothers to initiate exclusive breastfeeding, increase the initiation and offer support throughout the health system for mothers to sustain exclusive breastfeeding. Since it was set up eight years ago, the baby-friendly initiative has been implemented in thousands of hospitals and maternity centres in most countries of the world.

Just less than a decade after the baby-friendly initiative was launched; statistics from UNICEF recently showed reduction in children's death from thirteen million globally in 1990, to eight point eight million in Year 2008.

This is partly due to the adoption of basic health interventions such as early and exclusive breastfeeding.

In Nigeria , government over the years made efforts to subsidise medical health care to children and women through the establishment of primary health institutions not only in the cities but also in rural areas. However, in spite of all these, the promotion of sound feeding practices has become a serious challenge, which the health system has to tackle.

Breast milk promotes sensory and cognitive development , and protects the infant against infectious and chronic diseases. Exclusive breastfeeding has been found to reduce infant mortality resulting from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea or pneumonia, and helps for a quicker recovery during illness. Breastfeeding improves short and long term maternal and child health ; and thus contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals

Breastfeeding contributes to the health and well-being of mothers; it helps to space children, reduces the risk of ovarian cancer and breast cancer , and increases family and national resources. More importantly, it has been discovered to be a secure way of feeding that is also safe for the environment.

This year's World Breastfeeding Week focuses on 'Just 10 Steps' to encourage exclusive breastfeeding within all maternity facilities. It aims to increase the number of mothers who choose to breastfeed. The objectives include informing people on the role of breastfeeding for children's development, the health of mothers and promoting support for breastfeeding in health care systems and beyond.

The ten steps highlight what every facility providing maternity services and care for newborn infants should do. The centres are to have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff and train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy. It will inform all pregnant mothers about the benefits and management of breastfeeding, help mothers initiate breastfeeding within a half-hour of birth, show mothers how to breastfeed, and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants.

As part of the ten steps, mothers are to be educated to give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk unless medically indicated, encourage breastfeeding on demand, give no artificial teats or pacifiers, also called dummies or soothers, to breastfeeding infants and foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.

It is expected that the more of the ‘Ten Steps' that are adopted by health centres and care givers , the more likely women are to achieve their breastfeeding goals. Therefore, it is important for every maternity, hospital, clinic, health centre as well as community centre, to strive to increase the number of steps in place, even if they cannot achieve all ten steps immediately.

 

When this is done, each will be contributing its quota to the global efforts at taking the reliable ‘Ten Steps' to making this world a Baby-Friendly World!