Johannesburg - It isn’t that people do not know that breastfeeding is best for the health of the baby; the issue is – are South African mothers given an enabling environment to do so.
This is the discourse the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) nutritional specialist Chantell Witten said the country needed to start having in order to change the low levels of exclusive breast-feeding. Thursday was the last day of World Breast-feeding Week, which is from August 1 to 7.
This year’s theme was “Breast-feeding: A Winning Goal – for Life”.
According to NGO Save The Children, South Africa’s exclusive breastfeeding rate is eight percent – one of the lowest in the world.
Exclusive breast-feeding means giving a baby only breast milk with no supplementary feeding of any type (such as water, juice, animal milk or solid foods) except for prescribed vitamins, minerals and medications when medically needed.
“We are aware that people with supportive systems around them are likely to breast-feed. Unemployed mothers are more likely not to breast-feed because they have to look for piece jobs or find ways to support their child. Yes, people know breast is best, but are we supportive of mothers?” Witten asked.
According to the national Department of Health, the under-five mortality rate can be reduced by about 13 percent with improved breast-feeding practices alone, and six percent with improved complementary feeding.
“In addition, about 50 to 60 percent of under-five mortality is linked to malnutrition, due to inadequate complementary foods and feeding following on poor breastfeeding practices,” the department’s spokesman Popo Maja said in a statement.
The department’s policy, in line with the World Health Organisation and Unicef, is that mothers initiate breast-feeding within the first hour of birth and that mother’s exclusively breast-feed their infants for the first six months of life.
Witten said that countries such as Vietnam – which has a six months paid maternity protection policy for their mothers, and Cambodia and India which also have maternity protection legislated – were progressive in their structural support of mothers.
“Many of our women in the country are in informal employment.
“Think about the domestic worker, do you as an employer create an environment that supports breastfeeding for her?” she added.
Witten also challenged whether formal employment companies had progressive policies to have spaces available for female employees to breast-feed.
Maja continued: “Employers can support breast-feeding mothers by providing at least two breast-feeding breaks, a comfortable room that can be used to breast-feed or to express milk for the baby to feed the next day.”
Maja said the country already had 62 percent of its public health facilities with maternity beds accredited as mother and baby friendly.
“The aim of this global strategy is to create a health-care environment where, amongst other things, breast-feeding is the norm,” he said.
Witten said the scourge of non-communicable diseases in the country could not be addressed adequately without addressing the poor exclusive breast-feeding rates.
“The initiation rates into exclusive breast-feeding are high, but they start dwindling from about two to three months.
“And unfortunately, not all facilities are doing best practice when it comes to initiating mothers into breast-feeding,” she stated.
“We only have 62 percent in the public sector, but more women are delivering in the private sector and it’s not monitored.
“We want both sectors doing best practice,” Witten continued.
vuyo.mkhize@inl.co.za
The Star