Message from WHO: Importance of Breastfeeding

Message from the WHO on the importance of breastfeeding to saving childrens lives:

Note for the Media WHO/16

30 July 2010

Breastfeeding Key to Saving Children’s Lives

Ten steps to successful breastfeeding highlighted during World Breastfeeding Week

Geneva | Friday 30 July 2010 -- During World Breastfeeding Week, celebrated from 1 to 7 August in more than 170 countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) reiterates its call on health facilities and health workers to implement ten steps to help mothers breastfeed successfully and improve their babies’ health and chances of survival.

Breast milk is the ideal food for newborns and infants. It is safe, gives babies the nutrients they need for healthy development and contains antibodies that help protect infants from common childhood illnesses. While exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is on the rise in many countries, further improvement of breastfeeding rates is critical to improve the nutrition and the health of infants and children. For a variety of reasons, including the lack of breastfeeding counselling, still too many mothers stop exclusive breastfeeding within a few weeks after delivery.
“It is estimated that around 35% of infants aged 0 to 6 months are exclusively breastfed in the world today,” says Dr Elizabeth Mason, Director of WHO's Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development. “But if all babies and young children were breastfed exclusively for their first six months of life and then given nutritious complementary food with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age, the lives of an additional 1.5 million children under five would be saved every year.”
The “Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding” were developed by WHO and UNICEF to ensure maternity services are providing the right start for every infant and the necessary support for mothers to breastfeed. Today this check-list is used by hospitals in more than 150 countries.
The Ten Steps for health facilities to take towards ensuring successful breastfeeding are as follows:

1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
2. Train all health care staff in the skills necessary to implement this policy.
3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within half an hour of birth.
5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants.
6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk unless medically indicated.
7. Practise “rooming in” allowing mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day.
8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand whenever the baby is hungry.
9. Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.
10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.

Malnutrition is responsible for one-third of the 8.8 million deaths annually among children under five. It can be a direct cause of death but is also the most important single risk factor for disease in young children. Over two thirds of these deaths, which are often associated with inappropriate feeding practices such as bottle-feeding or untimely and inadequate complementary foods, occur during the first months of life.
“Increasing breastfeeding rates is a key component of the plan to improve infant and young child nutrition,” says Randa Saadeh, Coordinator of the Nutrition in the Life Course unit at WHO. “A renewed effort to make more hospitals ‘baby friendly’ has the potential to give millions more babies a healthy start in life.”

For further information, please contact:

Marie-Agnes Heine, Communications Officer, Department of Making Pregnancy Safer, WHO
Tel: +41 22 791 2710, Mobile: +41 794 495 784, Email: heinem@who.int

Randa Jarudi Saadeh, Coordinator, Nutrition in the Life Course Unit, Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, WHO.
Tel: +41 22 791 3315, Mobile: +41 79 475 5530, Email: saadehr@who.int

Notes to editors:

For more information on World Breastfeeding Week go to: http://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/

All WHO information can be found at : www.who.int

World Breatfeeding Week

In Canada World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated from October 1 to 7.
INFACT Canada will be uploading fact sheets and other promotional tools to celebrate the Week on our website at www.infactcanada.ca.

Elisabeth Sterken
Director INFACT Canada

In honour of world breastfeeding week

In honour of world breastfeeding week I'm going to post as many Breastfeeding articles as I can...but unfortunately I won't be writing my own (unless you count this as one, lol!), as I had a bit of a tussle with a brickwall on Saturday while helping a friend move.  As a result I've got my right hand splinted and bandaged fron fingers to elbow.... and i'm not much of a left handed one handed typist!!!!  So you've all been saved from my soapboxing .... for a week or so any way!!

World Breastfeeding Week!

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, I thought I’d illustrate the many sincere reasons why we so desperately need such a week to promote awareness.  
My knowledge that others clearly need some enlightenment in the breastfeeding department began as soon as I aquired the Internet.  I had read many books about the benefits of breastfeeding & it was such a natural, easy notion that bottle-feeding never occured to me, but I had no idea how controversial the topic is until I got a computer for school & started exploring the World Wide Web & its plethora of opinions.
It started innocently enough– I joined a pro-breastfeeding group online because I was interested in the stories & the support.  There I found what I had been looking for, but I also found a lot of misinformation & what seemed to be rage directed toward breastfeeding mothers.  I read that breastfeeding is gross & lactating women shouldn’t leave their homes, I read that breastfeeding women who nurse in public are sexual exhibitionists, I read that breastfeeding is ok– as long as you’re covered up!, I read that breastfeeding is fine but not after six months, I read that many women “can’t” breastfeed, I read that formula is just as good, & a whole host of other incorrect statements.
The more misinformation I read, & the more I learned about the incredible value of breastfeeding, the more “militant” I became about spreading information & supporting breastfeeding women.
I learned through my own experience that breastfeeding in public is not only important for societal reasons, but necessary for the health of a child.  When my son was just a couple weeks old, I went grocery shopping while wearing him in his sling.  I had fed him before we left, but as we meandered through the store, he started to cry.  I knew he was hungry again, so I looked for a place to breastfeed (I wasn’t yet adept enough at using the sling that I could easily employ it to nurse him comfortably).  The only option was a bench by the main door of the store, which was surrounded by shoppers & cash registers & old dudes sittin’ around.  I left my cart with all of my belongings in an aisle & I decided to hide in the bathroom.  The stalls were tiny & absolutely filthy; I had to straddle the nasty toilet seat while balancing my newborn on my knee so I could adust my shirt & bra to latch him on properly.  I had visions of dropping him the entire time & the whole experience was disgusting & degrading.  I didn’t know yet that my right to breastfeed & my son’s right to eat normally in a safe & comfortable environment was fully protected by the law. 
You see, the government recognizes my son’s needs more than the delicate sensitivities of passers-by who might not want to see the same amount of flesh (or less) that is revealed by a low-cut shirt, but with a baby attached.
If I didn’t happen to be an extremely strong-willed woman with a passionate desire to do what is best for my child & for the world, I may have switched to formula because it is easier in public.  I may have decided that the hassle of breastfeeding in a repulsive bathroom stall was too much, or that people leering at me made me uncomfortable, & I might have quit breastfeeding forever.  But with the recent report that breastfeeding can save almost 1,000 lives in a year in the U.S. alone (http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/05/breastfeeding.costs/index.html?iref=allsearch), it is clear that education about breastmilk is important, but sensitivity & support for the mothers on the other end of the breast is equally crucial.
I have often heard the question “why not just pump milk for a bottle?” in regards to breastfeeding in public.  I have previously explained how very possible it is to need to breastfeed in public; it is also often impossible to pump milk.  I was unable to pump more than a half ounce after several hours of trying, so simply pumping milk for a bottle to avoid offending others with my breast was not possible.  In addition to this difficulty, it has been proven that it is not only the breastmilk that is beneficial for the baby, but the physical closeness & warmth is excellent for a growing child.  The act of breastfeeding releases hormones in a mother that assist bonding with the baby.
I have also heard the demand “cover up, for decency’s sake!” when discussing public breastfeeding.  I understand that the sight of a nipple may surprise some people, especially in the U.S. where we sexualize women to the point of shaming them.  I learned, as soon as my son was strong enough to move his limbs, that keeping him under a blanket would be no easy task.  I tried several times, but he managed to either pull it off or get so upset that he was unable to nurse at all, so I stopped trying.  It has become very clear to me that people who do not wish to see the act of breastfeeding can look away.
The fact that breastfeeding saves lives, yet less than 15% of women in the U.S. make it to the bare minimum recommendation of 6 months, tells us that we absolutely need to normalize breastfeeding instead of demanding that women use synthetic devices to feed their children, or hide them under blankets.  More paramount than insisting that women be ashamed of their bodies is making the act of nursing standard so that future generations will embrace this normal way of feeding & stop employing sub-standard methods.

 HERE to read the entire article on Mothering.com