World Breastfeeding Week

1–7 August 2014

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from 1 to 7 August in more than 170 countries to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies around the world.


( © unicef/mutseyekwa/2010)  
Breastfeeding week Celebrations in Zimbabwe image from UNICEF website http://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/media_6136.html

World Health Organization Fact sheet N°342. Updated February 2014

-Under-nutrition is associated with 45% of child deaths.
-Globally in 2012, 162 million children under 5 were estimated to be stunted and 51 million have low weight-for-height, mostly as a consequence of poor feeding and repeated infections; 44 million were overweight or obese.
-About 38% of infants 0 to 6 months old are exclusively breastfed.
-Few children receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods; in many countries only a third of breastfed infants 6–23 months of age meet the criteria of dietary diversity and feeding frequency that are appropriate for their age.
-About 800 000 children's lives could be saved every year among children under 5, if all children 0–23 months were optimally breastfed.

WHO and UNICEF recommend:

-early initiation of breastfeeding with one hour of birth;
-exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life; and
-The introduction of nutritionally-adequate and safe complementary (solid) foods at 6 months together with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age or beyond.

Exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months has many benefits for the infant and mother. Chief among these is protection against gastrointestinal infections which is observed not only in developing but also industrialized countries. 
( extracted from The World Health Website) For more information please visit this site on. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs342/en/

Zimbabwe and Breastfeeding

"more work needs to be done to improve the rate of exclusive breastfeeding that currently stands at 31 percent, "says the Director of Family Health in the Ministry of Health, Bernard Madzima'
http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/66700/breastfeeding-concerns.html'

 (In an interview, nutrition intervention manager with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Mrs Monica Muti attributed the low uptake of exclusive breastfeeding to societal, cultural and religious beliefs surrounding lactating mothers.) http://www.herald.co.zw/exclusive-breastfeeding-remains-a-challenge/

 “The family is maybe the biggest challenge to correct breastfeeding practice in Zimbabwe,” .....

Chikukwa says men who are aware that their wives or partners are HIV-positive but are ignorant of the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding, demand – often with an accompanying threat of violence – that mothers not breastfeed the baby, fearing transmission of the virus to the child.

But relatives who do not know that the mother is HIV-positive in turn demand that the woman breastfeed her infant. “So there’s a clash, and the woman is torn apart,” Chikukwa says.

http://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/media_14530.html

 Below are some local news articles that expand and elaborate on breastfeeding practice in Zimbabwe.

1. Mothers should not feel guilty about not breastfeeding

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/2013/08/25/mothers-should-not-feel-guilty-about-not-breastfeeding/

2. Breastfeeding concerns

http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/66700/breastfeeding-concerns.html

3. exclusive breastfeeding remains a challenge 

 http://www.herald.co.zw/exclusive-breastfeeding-remains-a-challenge/

4.  exclusive breastfeeding protects newborns from HIV/AIDS 

http://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/media_14530.html

Some books online include.

Guidelines on HIV and infant feeding 2010
http://www.who.int/entity/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/9789241599535/en/index.html

Infant and young child feeding: Model Chapter for textbooks for medical students and allied health professionals
http://www.who.int/entity/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/9789241597494/en/index.html

In our Library Book Collection we also have:

1. Breastfeeding : a guide for medical profession by Lawrence
2. 2. Human Milk Banking by Williams
3. Breastfeeding and human Lactation by Riodan
4. Breastfeeding ; the biological option by Ebrahim

For these and more on breastfeeding and related topics please visit our library.