By Inyakuni Kennedy

Obongi

Poor breastfeeding habit among mothers in Obongi district is blamed for the raising case of malnutrition among children. The situation is said to be worse with the working class mothers due to lack of breastfeeding corners in the work environment. The comments were made as the district joins the world in celebrating World Breastfeeding Week.

It is normally celebrated every year from 1 to 7 August to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies around the world. The theme for this year’s world breastfeeding week is “Let’s make breastfeeding and work, work!”

Mr. Dominic Lomurechu, the acting Obongi District Health Officer said many children are malnourished and some develop other kinds of diseases due to lack of protection during the first six months of exclusive breast feeding.   “For many times as we go with development, you will realize after three months a baby is already introduced to other types of food which sometimes will result into the child developing complications.  As Africans we have enough food but you find our children are malnourished, some are stunted and this is because of poor breast feeding habit right from the initiation,” Mr. Lomurechu remarked.

According to him, the working class women are the most affected people who poorly feed their children compared to the non-working ones and those in the rural areas. He added that the urban also poorly feed their children. “The children are introduced to food early just because they do not want to go with the child to the office,   and the child is left at home with introduced food,” the acting DHO said.

He added that, the challenge with rural breast feed mothers is poor hygiene which compromises the health of the child. “Many don’t wash hands even the nips of the breast before a child feeds. People want the child to start crying before he/she is breast fed yet the recommendation is at least every after one or two hours,” he said.

 
Mr. Lomurechu Dominic, the Obongi acting DHO

Many medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, strongly recommend breastfeeding exclusively for 6 months. After the introduction of other foods, it recommends continuing to breastfeed through the baby’s first year of life.

Mr. Sunday Dragule, the Obongi assistant District Health Officer, noted that the district has embarked on community sensitization on the significance of exclusive breastfeeding, the need to establish breastfeeding corners in all the institutions in the district for lactating mothers to make breastfeeding at work, work. Sunday explains that it’s always important to improve the nutrition status of children within the first 1000 days of the babies.

He said it’s paramount to raise awareness and promote breastfeeding for all mothers.  “We have realized less than 65% of the mothers delivers at the health facilities in the district yet the target is 100%,    the essence is when you deliver, you should initiate breastfeeding within the first one hour of birth, that means the people who deliver not in health facility may not initiate their babies in the first one hour,” Mr. Sunday noted.

The assistant DHO has advised mothers not to give any type of food to babies below six months except medicine. He has appealed to employers to provide conducive working environment for breastfeeding mothers to ensure they continue with exclusive breastfeeding even when at work.

Sr. Margret Atimaku, a nurse at Moyo general hospital explains that poor breastfeeding can lead to infections like diarrhea and other respiratory diseases.
According to World Health Organization, More than half a billion working women are not given essential maternity protections in national laws, and Just 20% of countries require employers to provide employees with paid breaks and facilities for breastfeeding or expressing milk