Press. Voanews.com
The United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns that 77 million babies deprived of
mother’s milk within the first crucial hours after birth are at great risk of
dying within a month. To mark World
Breastfeeding Week (August 1 to 7), UNICEF and the World Health Organization
(WHO) are calling for newborns to be breastfed exclusively for six months.
UNICEF says
newborns should be breastfed within the first hour of life. This provides them with the essential
nutrients, antibodies and skin-to-skin contact with their mother that protects
them from disease and death.
UNICEF reports
the longer breastfeeding is delayed, the higher the risk of death in the first
month of life. It warns delaying
breastfeeding by 24 or more hours after birth increases that risk to 80
percent.
On the other
hand, it notes more than 800,000 lives would be saved if all babies were fed
nothing but mother’s milk from the moment they were born until six months of
age.
Unfortunately,
the World Health Organization says this message is slow in getting
through. WHO spokeswoman, Fadela Chaib,
said new mothers are not receiving the support and encouragement they need to
breast feed their babies.
“The slogan this
year is breastfeed anywhere, any time because it is also, as I said, the role
of society to make this possible for mothers who want to breast feed. This being said, yes, it is an old problem. We have always been advocating for more
breastfeeding because we are convinced of the benefit of breastfeeding. It is really the ideal food for infants,”
said Chaib.
For example, she
said, breastfeeding protects children against many common illnesses. Breastfed
children perform better on intelligence tests, are less likely to be overweight
or obese and less prone to diabetes later in life.
Chaib told VOA
that inappropriate marketing of infant formula continues to undermine efforts
to get women to breastfeed their babies.
“We are not
against them producing this kind of milk.
What we are against is the fact that they promote it as if it is the
same value that the milk of the mother.
It is a lie. It is not the same,”
said Chaib.
Progress in
getting more newborns breastfed within the first hour of life has been slow
over the past 15 years. Surveys show in
sub-Saharan Africa, where under-five mortality rates are the highest in the
world, early breastfeeding rates have remained unchanged.
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