Successful Breastfeeding

        The best milk for a newborn baby is incontestably breast milk. It contains around more than 400 vital nutrients, hormones and immunity agents. All healthy, normal weight babies must be exclusively breastfed till the age of six months.

Exclusive breastfeeding is the feeding of baby only breast milk for up to six months. It is essential to help the mothers of healthy newborn babies to establish breastfeeding as soon as possible after delivery.  Exclusive breastfeeding should be continued till six months of age and complimentary food should start after that only.

The Baby- Friendly Hospital initiative (BFHI) is introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1991 to implement practices to promote, protect and support breastfeeding all around the world.

Aims of BFHI

• To develop an optimistic move towards breastfeeding in the community
• To encourage breastfeeding awareness for pregnant ladies and to the community
• To safeguard the rights of mothers and babies to breastfeed.
• To support mothers to breastfeed by facilitating health facilities caring for mothers and babies to become ‘baby-friendly’
• To keep up the baby-friendly facility and approach in health care sectors

Advantages of breastfeeding:

• Breast milk is a complete food and it is easily digestible and well absorbing. It is better for brain growth also.
• It protects against infection
• Breastfeeding promotes emotional bonding
• Feeding helps the involution of the uterus
• It delays pregnancy intervals (lactation amenorrhea method of birth control)
• Lowers risk of breast and ovarian cancer
• Exclusively breastfed babies are at decreased risk of diarrhea, pneumonia, ear infections, and death in the first year of life.

  Put baby to feed at the breast as soon as possible after birth. This is important for the mother, baby, and for milk production. On the first day, breast milk is thick and yellowish (known as Colostrum). Feeding this milk provides nutrition and prevents infections.  So do not discard colostrum and make sure the child gets it.

The mother may lie down, sit on a bed, chair or floor to breastfeed her baby. The more the baby sucks on the breast the more milk the breast will produce. Allow baby to feed at one breast until he leaves the nipple on his own. Then feed at the other breast if he continues to be hungry.
All mothers, particularly the first-time mothers would require some help to initiate breastfeeding.
It is very important not to introduce bottle feeds or pacifier before the first six months. Don’t give baby gripe water, honey, animal or powdered milk before six months. After six months you can introduce mother’s milk along with locally available nutritious food supplements to the baby.
Healthy newborn babies can breastfeed on demand, i.e. whenever the baby cries for feeds. The usual time interval between each feed is about 2 to 3 hours. Mothers should feed their babies at least 8-10 times in 24 hours and importantly, not to omit any night feeds. Breast feeding is considered adequate if the infant passes urine 6-8 times in 24 hours. Sleep for 2-3 hours after feeding and gaining weight adequately.

As we breathe in this world we are dedicated to making decisions about infant feeding.