“A quarter of all child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa — which equals more than one million a year — take place during the first 28 days of life, according to the NGO Save the Children.” – “West Africa: The Hour Window to Find the Breast” by IRIN
I am passionate about the benefits of breastfeeding. When my newborn daughter had trouble nursing, I scoured every resource for answers, tried every position short of hanging upside-down, and sought advice from multiple doctors and lactation consultants. For months, nursing meant an arduous routine of long feedings, pumping to keep up my milk supply and supplementing so my daughter had enough to eat. As soon as one cycle was finished, it was time to start all over, and so I literally fed my daughter all day long. As it turned out, my daughter was tongue-tied, and when she was four months old, we traveled to New York to see a pediatric surgeon (that’s another story). With a simple snip, my daughter’s tongue was loosened, and she immediately began to feed more efficiently. I was able to quit pumping and supplementing, and nursed her until she was one. Knowing how good that breast milk was for my daughter, though we had to fight to continue, giving up wasn’t an option for me.
According to a recent article published by Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), many mothers in parts of Africa are unknowingly cheating their children out of the life-giving benefits of breast milk out of ignorance. While we in the western world have access to basic nutritional information through doctors we regularly visit, these women often don’t. They wrongly believe the first milk their bodies produce after delivering a baby, the nutrient-rich colostrum, is dirty. As a result of this belief, rooted in superstition and tradition, the mothers refuse to feed it to their newborns, and instead, they throw it out,resulting in malnourished, immuno-compromised children.
Contrary to their ideas, colostrum is possibly the most nutritional breast milk a mother can feed her baby. It is highly-nutritive and passes important antibodies from the mother to the child, boosting baby’s immune system. What mother doesn’t want the best for her child if it is within her power to give it? But she cannot give what she does not know to give. A 2007 medical study shows that breastfeeding within the first hour of life can reduce infant deaths by 20%. Considering the statistics on infant deaths in certain African countries, it is imperative to teach these mothers how important it is to begin breastfeeding their babies as soon after delivery as possible.
However, “It is not enough to simply tell women why early breastfeeding is so important…[said WHO researcher, Carmen Casanovas]. If you just tell a mother she needs to breastfeed immediately after birth, she will not necessarily do it. Someone trusted needs to talk to her and work with her beliefs.” The article goes on to cite that a 2008 report showed that while these mothers weren’t buying the truth about breastfeeding from official sources, they were influenced by their peers and by community mother support groups.
I fought hard to continue nursing because I knew the statistics. For many mothers throughout the world, breastfeeding is a simple and easy way to boost their babies’ health, but they won’t do it if they don’t understand its importance. The knowledge is so simple, it doesn’t have to come from a doctor. SIS, who works in countries in Africa, such as Senegal, Mali and Sudan, where infant mortality is high, knows something about educating women about health and nutrition through their peers and through support groups. Through the transformation groups we help form and sustain in India, illiterate women from slums are being trained as community health workers. This benefits the community and the women themselves. As the women are trained, they are given new purpose and identity, and they quickly become respected “blessers” in their communities as the information they share saves lives.
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