GHANA- Friday, August 7, 2020/– The first week of August each year is set aside to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week. U-Reporter, a free SMS-based tool for community participation and innovation by UNICEF says Breastmilk is the baby’s first vaccine and provides antibodies that give babies everywhere a healthy boost and protects them against many infections and may help the baby fight against Covid-19 infection if exposed.
Colostrum, the yellowish, sticky breast milk produced at the end of pregnancy, is recommended by WHO as the perfect food for the newborn, and feeding should be initiated within the first hour after birth as breastfeeding is the normal way of providing young infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development.
Breastfeeding is therefore considered as a complex adaptive process that bonds a mother and her child. During this process, physical, biochemical, hormonal, and psychological exchanges occur to facilitate the transfer of needed essential nutrients between the mother and her child.
But, in a research article published by PLOS ONE, it reveals that the issue of breastfeeding is not that rosy. The document titled Maternal challenges of exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding in Ghana shows that mothers are sometimes negatively influenced by others on to how to practice breastfeeding. Other challenges include the belief that breast milk alone is not sufficient in meeting the nutritional needs of infants, short maternity leave period and socio-cultural pressure to introduce water and artificial feeds. Again, breastfeeding mothers who return to work often feel exhausted since they feed-on-demand and attend to family and employment responsibilities leading to concerns for their personal health.
The theme for World Breastfeeding Week 2020 is “Support breastfeeding for a healthier planet” and in line with the theme, the WHO and UNICEF in a joint statement is calling on governments to protect and promote women’s access to skilled breastfeeding counselling which they say is a critical component of breastfeeding support.
Skilled counselling services can ensure that mothers and families receive the needed support, along with the information, advice and the reassurance they need to nourish their babies optimally. Breastfeeding counselling can also help mothers to build confidence to be able to nurture their children, empower women to overcome challenges and prevent feeding and care practices that may interfere with optimal breastfeedings, such as the provision of unnecessary liquids, food and breastmilk substitutes to infants and young children.
Aside from Skilled counselling, for mothers to practice appropriate complementary feeding, they need to have suitable and enough food and ensure that there is diversity in the diets they give to their children. However, in many poor homes, the available food is mostly cereal-based with low nutrient density and poor minerals posing substantial low nutrient consumption for breastfeeding mothers and their children. Even in some cases, commercially fortified foods are often beyond the reach of poor mothers, therefore they resort to homemade complementary foods and these foods are mostly unfortified providing insufficient key nutrients to children aged 6-23 months.
To promote breastfeeding in Ghana, the Ministry of Health has implemented several policies which include; the Baby-Friendly Hospital initiative, the National Child Health Policy and the National Nutrition Policy.
The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative was adopted and implemented in qualified health facilities in the country to promote breastfeeding initiation and improvements of exclusive breastfeeding among neonates and infants less than 6 months respectively. The National Child Policy was equally implemented to promote the survival, growth and development of all children. Also, the National Nutrition Policy, as contained in one of its measures, was to promote optimal nutrition among infants and young children in the areas of appropriate breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices. All these policies, as part of their purposes, were intended to guide stakeholders in the country to effectively and properly ensure the healthy growth and development of infants and young children. Notwithstanding the well-defined aims of these policies listed, infants and young children feeding practices are still low in Ghana.
The Global Breastfeeding Scorecard, a new report by UNICEF and the WHO in collaboration with the Global Breastfeeding Collective, an initiative that aims to increase global breastfeeding rates, points out that breastfeeding does not only help to prevent diarrhoea and pneumonia, the two major causes of death in infants, but also helps to reduce mother’s risk of ovarian and breast cancer, the two leading causes of death among women.
The scorecard which evaluated 194 nations revealed that no country in the world fully meets recommended breastfeeding standards. It found that only 40 per cent of children younger than six months are given nothing but breastmilk and only 23 countries have exclusive breastfeeding rates above 60 per cent.
Both UNICEF and the WHO believes that breastfeeding is critical to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), stating that it improves nutrition, SDG 2; prevents child mortality and decreases the risk of non-communicable diseases, SDG 3; and supports cognitive development and education, SDG 4. These UN agencies further stated that breastfeeding is also an enabler to ending poverty, promoting economic growth and reducing inequalities.
The low level of awareness associated with the World Breastfeeding Week 2020 is a cause for worry. Governments, Civil Society Organizations and the Media must intensive education and create more awareness about this important process of human development.
The Business Case for Breastfeeding, a publication dedicated to educating employers on steps for a breastfeeding-friendly worksite states research shows that providing a lactation support program is not only highly desired by breastfeeding employees who return to work after childbirth, it can also improve an organization’s Return on Investment by saving money on health care and employees expenses. Religious organizations should also adopt this lactation support policy to make breastfeeding mothers more comfortable in places of worship.
Start Right, Feed Right- from birth to 2 years.
Follow Us
Michael Sa-Ambo is a consummate writer who is passionate about development on the African continent. His area of interest is in current affairs, personal development and communication.
