Children

This week, 1-7 August 2008, is World Breastfeeding Week

In conjunction with the Olympics next August, WBW 2008 calls for greater support for mothers in achieving the gold standard of infant feeding: breastfeeding exclusively for six months, and providing appropriate complementary foods with continued breastfeeding for up to two years or beyond.

As every country sends its best athletes to compete at these global games, it is important to remind ourselves that, in a similar fashion, a healthy young athlete can only emerge from a healthy start on life. There is no question that optimal infant and young child feeding is essential for optimal growth and development.

Supporting Mother = Supporting Her to Provide the Golden Start For Every Child !

In the wake of rising food prices and soaring malnutrition the need to promote breast feeding has never been greater. While the health benefits of breastfeeding have long since been getting the spotlight in campaigns, a new ali in the battle to see that breastfeeding is key in a child’s early nutritional development is increasing malnutrition and growing food prices. First of all in a climate of nothing other than continually rising prices, breast milk is the one staple that is free.

Large numbers of infants are suffering serious bouts of diarrhea, and in some cases dying, from infant formula provided in emergency situations. Therefore all UN agencies, aid groups, and governments are being urged to ensure women are not automatically given infant formula during emergency situations, and are encouraged to breast-feed.

In recent news the plight of malnourished children across the globe have been highlighted in an effort to increase the participation of women in breastfeeding, as one of the main weapons in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

In Ethiopia Soaring malnutrition hits children hardest, as there are an some 126,000 children in need of urgent treatment for severe malnutrition, mostly of which are in the impoverished, drought-prone districts of the country.

Breast is best, even for mothers with HIV, as antiretroviral treatments (ART) grately reduced the transmition of the HIV virus from mother to child from breastfeeding.

“HIV-positive mothers on ART lower the risk of transmission through breastfeeding from 20 [percent] to five percent,” said Linda Beyer, an official in charge of Nutrition and HIV/AIDS at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

In Indonesia Child malnutrition aggravated by food, oil price rises, however Anne Vincent, head of the UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) health and nutrition section in Indonesia, said she was”appalled” by eating habits in Indonesia.

“Sometimes they give their children only rice with water. Kids don’t grow on that.”

These ‘bad habits, mixed with a large decline in breastfeeding has lead to the main cause of the country’s high mortality rate, according to Vincent.  Please also see, Diarrhoea takes deadly toll on toddlers consuming infant formula, on how substituting breast milk has often lead to disastrous consequences.

“The lives of 30,000 children could be saved [annually] if mothers breastfed their babies exclusively for the first six months.”

In Yemen a breastfeeding campaign urgently needed according to UNICEF. Nassem Ur-Rehman, chief communications and information officer at UNICEF’s Sanaa office, said nearly half of Yemen’s under-fives were malnourished:

“The health of small children is bad and getting worse. A breastfeeding campaign is urgently needed.”

Ur-Rehman stated that some 84,000 infants die from diseases such as diarrhea, which is the leading cause of death and pneumonia, each year, and that breastfeeding could help reduce such hid mortality rates. Dhekra Annuzaili, UNICEF’s nutrition programme officer, said that “exclusive breastfeeding” has decreased and claimed that both Doctors and the media were not doing enough to promote breastfeeding.

It is apparent that around the globe awareness on the benefits to the long-term health of a child through breastfeeding out way most risks and the preconceived inconveniences, especially as food prices and malnutrition soar, the the economic benefits are becoming almost as necessary as the health benefits. It is blatantly obvious that campaigns to promote and educate families on the benefits of breastfeeding must be put into place by both government and non-government bodies alike.


See other related posts including;
New Hope For Decreasing Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS
The first 2 years of life are vital for children, but For 3.5 million it has been a miss
Is Breastfeeding heading for extinction in the Philippines?
Millions of Children Needlessly Dying from Preventable Disease
Infant’s Rights to Nutrition

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Children, HIV/AIDS, Health, Food Crisis or Shortage, Poverty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.