Geneva: UNICEF is urging mothers to do more to start breastfeeding their newborns within an hour of birth, saying breast milk is a baby’s “first vaccine”.
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“These mothers are sharing their stories on what led them to bottle feed and their feelings about it. There is so much judgement towards bottle feeding mothers and I want to help fight against it. No mother should be looked down on and we should lift each other up, rather than put others down for their choices.”
If all babies were fed nothing but breast milk from birth to six months, more than 800,000 lives could be saved each year, UNICEF said. Breast milk is touted as being “nature’s ideal baby food”, but are bottle-fed babies less healthy than their breastfed counterparts? On the other hand, the rates of early breast feeding in South Asia has tripled from 2000 but 21 million newborns a year are not breastfed within the first hour.
Breast milk contains all the nutrients needed by children in the first six months of life. Delaying breastfeeding by 2-23 hours after birth increases the risk of dying in the first 28 days of life by 40 per cent. Delaying it by 24 hours or more increases that risk to 80 per cent.
To observe the World Breastfeeding Week, which is marked around the world from August 1-7 since 1992, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) has declared this year’s theme to be “Breastfeeding: a key to sustainable development” August 1-7.
The report also said: “Children who are breastfed for longer periods have lower rates of infectious disease and death than children who are breastfed for shorter periods or were never breastfed”.
From 1-7 August, World Breastfeeding Week will be celebrated in mainland Tanzania, along with the national Farmers” Day known as “Nane Nane’.
That’s because if a woman has HIV she could spread the disease to her baby through breastfeeding. This means early breastfeeding can make a big difference in the mortality rates of children under five years old. Breast milk is rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats that can be mimicked in certain formulas, but supplemental milk does not carry the many antibodies, living cells, enzymes and hormones necessary for fighting infections and sickness that could potentially lead to infant death. In the Middle East, North Africa and in South Asia, for example, women who deliver with a skilled birth attendant are less likely to initiate breastfeeding in the first hour of life, compared to women who deliver with unskilled attendants or relatives. In many countries, mothers are more inclined to feed their child with infant formula, sugar water, or milk from cows within the first three days of life. Nearly half of all newborns are fed these liquids.
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Globally, only 43% of infants under six months old are exclusively breastfed.
