monalisa patsani
post news network
Bhubaneswar, August 2: The first week of August is celebrated as World Breastfeeding Week (WBW). The theme for this year’s WBW celebration, the official website says, is “how breastfeeding is a key element in getting us to think about how to value our well-being from the start of life, how to respect each other and care for the world we share”.
The theme appears disconnected from reality in the context of the nation, state and the city. But awareness seems to be growing and there is light at the end of the tunnel, going by what people Orissa POST interacted with had to say.
A recent nationwide survey showed that only about half the infants born are being breastfed in the first hour of birth. And India ranks lowest among south Asian countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in breastfeeding, with only 44 per cent women being able to breastfeed their babies within one hour of delivery.
Mostly, babies of working women are deprived of breast milk as such women find little time to breastfeed their newborns amid their professional pursuits. Most women either go for long leave, or quit jobs to take care of their babies.
Amrita Beura practises as an advocate in the city. She used to work as assistant professor in Amity University and had to quit her job to take care of her babies (twins). “It takes a lot from a working woman to give equal attention to profession and family. When my first child was born in 2011, I took a break for 8 months from work to look after my baby. I was conscious about my child’s health and of the importance of breastfeeding. My baby was fed breast milk alone for six months. Now I have taken two years’ leave since my babies were born prematurely.” She believes time management was key to handling motherhood along with the demands of jobs.
Neena Padhy, a 32-year-old dentist, though, said she never had to take leave to nurse her children. She took the help of a new technology to make breast milk available to her child even in her absence. “I have two children. I ensured that my babies were given only on breast milk by collecting it using breast pumps and stroring it in a freezer. The milk would be given to my babies in my absence. This method works well for working women. I fed my children on breast milk for eight months,” Neena said.
Paediatricians Orissa POST spoke with highlighted the importance of breastfeeding and advised that babies should be fed with breast milk for 2 years so that they are properly developed. “The first milk of a mother is a boon for a child. Normally, new mothers do not know that this milk is best for a child and discard it. Mothers need to be aware of this and breastfeed their babies within an hour of their birth,” Swarnalata Dash, paediatrics professor at KIMS, said.
She added that a baby should be fed compulsorily and exclusively on breast milk for the first six months. “Earlier the duration of breastfeeding used to be from 3 to 4 years but nowadays it has been reduced to 2 years as most women don’t get time. There is no harm in it, though,” Swarnalata said.
The paediatrician, while not gainsaying the benefits of electronic breast pumps, said direct breastfeeding was still the best. “The milk extracted using pumps must be used within 6-8 hours if kept in room temperature and within 24 hours if kept in a freezer. One should be very careful with storage and feeding it to children.
“Government employees generally do not have problems as they are able to avail maternity leave for up to a year, but women working in private organisations face problems. Stress at the workplace can affect expression of milk and impair its quality, which is bad for a child. Working mothers should try not to be stressed,” she said.