World Breastfeeding Week Celebrations launched

 By Kemo Cham

[First published on www.politicosl.com] The Ministry of Health and partners on Friday June 29 officially launched the 2016 World Breastfeeding Week commemoration with calls for society to help ensure lactating mothers are provided the conducive environment to breastfeed their children.

The weeklong celebration, which runs annually from August 1 to 7, is designed to promote breast milk as the essential source of nutrients for babies, especially those under six months.

“Breastfeeding is the best start for every child in life,” said Aminata Shamit Koroma, Director of Food and Nutrition at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, speaking at a press conference.

The theme for this year’s commemoration is: ‘Breastfeeding: A Key to Sustainable Development.’ The theme, Ms Koroma told journalists, is relevant in that it coincided with the commencement of the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The SDGs are a set of development targets identified by the UN as successor to the Millennium Development Goals. The set of 17 goals combined aim at ending poverty and ushering in prosperity.

These goals, she Koroma, were linked to breastfeeding because they represented the best start in life for every child.

In Sierra Leone, the week-long event usually takes the form of media discussions and symposium on the relevance of breastfeeding; expectant and lactating mothers get counseling at health centers and clinics, as well as through mother-to-mother support groups, on breastfeeding and its importance.

The objective of the commemoration, among others, is to inform everybody about the new SDGs and how they relate to breastfeeding, infant and young child feeding,” said Ms Koroma. She added that it aims at galvanizing a variety of actions at all levels in breastfeeding, and to engage and collaborate with a wider range of actors around promotion, protection and support of breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding, especially exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life, is considered among the most effective and low cost intervention for improving children’s survival and health. This is because, according to experts, breast milk provides essential irreplaceable nutrition for the child’s growth and development.

Breast milk is also seen as the child’s first immunization due to its health impact.

“Breast milk is sterile, secure, and instantly available… It contains not only water but all the nutrients required and needs no preparation. It is safe, taste good, sustainable and gives protection against infection and as such tailored towards the baby’s needs,” said Koroma.

While official statistics show an encouraging improvement in the rate of breastfeeding in Sierra Leone between 2008 and 2014, they indicate that early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding remain a major challenge. 

The high table at the press conference

According to the directorate of Food and Nutrition, figures from the National Nutrition Survey (NNS) of 2014 show that exclusive breastfeeding saw a rise from 11 percent in 2008 to 58.8 percent in 2014. It also shows hat colostrum feeding was at 80.9 percent.

Colostrum is the first milk produced by the mother after the birth of the baby. It is a yellowish liquid substance that known to contain antibodies which protect the baby against diseases. Protein and fat concentration are also thought to be higher in colostrums than in the normal breast milk.

Timely initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour of birth, which is something the Health ministry is emphasizing on, stands at 54.9 percent, while continued breastfeeding for up to one year is at 86 percent.

“We are not doing too bad, but when it comes to timely, early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding, we need to do more,” said the director said. She added that these figures have already greatly contributed to the reduction of chronic malnutrition, especially salting, which was at 32 percent in 2008 and 28.8 percent in 2014.

She called for effective collaboration with all government ministries, donor partners, UN family, NGOs, local government authorities, the media, health practitioners, mother-to-mother support groups, and CSOs, to work together to continue the sensitization and advocacies of policies that would protect, promote and support breastfeeding.

Aminata Shamit Koroma

August 1 ushers in a momentous week when the world seeks to uphold the art of breastfeeding, said Kajali Paintal, nutrition specialist at Unicef Sierra Leone.

“This [breast milk] is the first tangible gift that a mother gives to her infant and provides the baby with complete nourishment and protection which has an impact not only in the first few days and months of the baby’s life, but also has an impact till the child grows to maturity,” she said.

The Unicef representative spoke on the “explicit” link between long term development of children and breastfeeding. She said because it provides the child food and nutrition security, breast milk helps babies and infants to survive and grow and develop to their full potential.

“If children are well nourished and they grew optimally they tend to work better, have better productivity, contribute to the productivity of the country, the economy of the country, and thus overall contribute to the overall well being of the country,” she said.

Ms Paintal revealed that in Sierra Leone, out of every 100 children born, 41 missed out on exclusive breastfeeding for the first 180 days of life.

This, she said, meant that these 41 in 100 children carried increased risk of disease and death.

“We need to save them. We need to accelerate our efforts to save these children,” she said while calling on government to ensure provision of measures that allow women the freedom to breastfeed their children. She also called for support from family members, the larger community, healthcare providers, as well as employers.

She said due to industrialization of the world’s economy, more and more women were going out of their homes to work, which required policies and laws that would protect them against discrimination which prevents the chance to breastfeed children.

While stereotypes and superstition have led to many children by denied the chance to breastfeed, especially so for children born of uneducated mothers, mostly it’s the educated mums who tend not to breast feed their children, largely to due to interruption by working hours.

The UN and women’s groups have been seeking to have a legislation that will force employers to slacken the rules for lactating working mothers to breastfeed their babies. One suggestion among women is for the period of maternal leave to be extended.

In Sierra Leone, it is currently at three month. Others want flexible working conditions to allow suckling mothers to leave for home early to breastfeed their kids.

Sierra Leone currently has no policy or legislation towards this, although officials say discussion is ongoing.

“As the country moves ahead in developing strategies and budgets to achieve the sustainable development goals, measures to support breastfeeding needs to be made a priority,” said Paintal.

“We believe that breastfeeding is the basic human rights and all mothers have the right to breastfeed and that all babies have the basic right to be breastfed. We will continue to focus like never before on our core commitment for children with the greater emphasis on advocacy, leadership in issues that support breastfeeding and we will do it in partnership with multiple sectors, like health, protection, education, water and sanitation, and many other ministries."