Increasing Popularity of Exclusive Breastfeeding
By: Emily Bong, Help My Pikin Campaign Manager
“Babies who are fed nothing but breast-milk from the moment they are born until they are six months old grow and develop better. Breast milk gives a child a head start in life and a chance to fight child malnutrition later in life.”
– Arjan de Wagt, UNICEF Nigeria Chief of Nutrition1
From 1994 to 2013, the popularity of exclusive breastfeeding has grown. Prevalence has increased over 55% in countries such as Ghana. However, in countries such as Nigeria, prevalence has only increased about 13%.1 Nigeria’s rate used to be one of the highest in the world, but now it is one of the lowest.2 One reason why popularity has not increased further is the high pressure to give water to newborn babies in addition to milk, making the practice not exclusive. Other reasons consist of hormonal challenges, lack of family support, societal influence, influence of extended families, and social status.3 However, exclusive breastfeeding offers many benefits that mothers need to consider. Benefits include4:
- Promotes recovery of a sick child
- Provides total food security with the correct amount of nutrients
- Meets all water requirements which means less risk from dirty water or bottles
- Optimizes child’s physical and mental growth and development
- Bonds mother and child
- Saves money
- Protects the environment since it requires no preparation, packaging, shipping, or disposal
While breastfeeding has many benefits, not breastfeeding actually contributes to negative health consequences. Alison Stuebe, MD, MSc, a board-certified maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, conducted a study comparing the effects of using formula versus breastfeeding for mothers and children. She associates infants who are not breastfed with an “increased incidence of infectious morbidity as well as elevated risks of childhood obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, leukemia, and sudden infant death syndrome.”5 Failure to breastfeed also has consequences for the mothers including “premenopausal breast cancer, ovarian cancer, retained gestational weight gain, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome.”5 With the many risks associated with not breastfeeding, more mothers should breastfeed.
If more women in developing countries breastfeed, over 800,000 deaths in children under 5 can potentially be prevented.6 Since breastfeeding has many benefits, Healthcare Trends is taking the initiative to promote breastfeeding within our new Help My Pikin mobile application. Since hospitals encourage formula use, the application guides mothers, in various languages, through the task of breastfeeding. The application also includes guiding videos on many other aspects of infant and mother health. No child born alive deserves to die, and we need to give the child a fighting chance through methods such as breastfeeding exclusively.
While breastfeeding has many benefits, not breastfeeding actually contributes to negative health consequences. Alison Stuebe, MD, MSc, a board-certified maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, conducted a study comparing the effects of using formula versus breastfeeding for mothers and children. She associates infants who are not breastfed with an “increased incidence of infectious morbidity as well as elevated risks of childhood obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, leukemia, and sudden infant death syndrome.”5 Failure to breastfeed also has consequences for the mothers including “premenopausal breast cancer, ovarian cancer, retained gestational weight gain, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome.”5 With the many risks associated with not breastfeeding, more mothers should breastfeed.
References
- Unicef Nigeria. (2016). “More than 5 million Nigerian newborn miss out on head start in life.” Retrieved from: https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/media_10520.html
- (2016). “Nigeria’s slow drive in exclusive breastfeeding.” Retrieved from: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/08/nigerias-slow-drive-in-exclusive-breastfeeding/
- Adekunle, R. and Muanya, C. (2016). “Boosting breastfeeding in Nigeria.” The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://guardian.ng/features/boosting-breastfeeding-in-nigeria/
- Ogundipe, S. (2017). “Why your baby should not receive any supplement or water.” Retrieved from: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/baby-not-receive-supplement-water/
- A. (2009). “The risks of not breastfeeding for mothers and infants.” PubMed. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812877/
- (2015). “Breastfeeding.” Retrieved from: https://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_24824.html
