Achieving MDGs through breastfeeding

Mercy Ngwebvu
AUGUST is the International Breastfeeding Awareness Month which is aimed at empowering women to commit to breastfeeding by highlighting new research showing that babies who are exclusively breastfed for six months are less likely to develop ear infections, diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses and may be less likely to develop childhood obesity.
In celebrating the Breastfeeding Awareness Month, nursing mothers should keep in mind that successful breastfeeding is a form of rallying behind Zimbabwe and the word at large in seeing to the achievement of development goals in 2015.

Breastfeeding can be difficult for some women in the first few weeks, but it gets easier and more natural with time.
Lactation consultants always advise that women should take breastfeeding seriously because of the miracle carried in the mother’s milk.

Despite making the baby healthier, breast milk also makes the child smarter and quite intelligent. Besides, breast feeding is a natural gift which should be embraced by every woman with joy and enthusiasm.

Breast milk gives the baby more than just good nutrition. It also provides important substances to fight infection. Breastfeeding has medical and psychological benefits for both the child and the mother.

For many mothers and babies, breastfeeding goes smoothly from the start. For others, it takes a little time and several attempts to get the process going effectively because like anything new, it takes some practice.

Deciding to breastfeed can give one’s baby the best possible start in life and it is also a proud tradition of many cultures inasfar as the maternal bond between a mother and her child is concerned.

While it typically occurs due to pregnancy and childbirth, the mother-child bonding process is enhanced even more through the process of breastfeeding.

Many new mothers do not always experience the “instantly-in-mother-love” emotions. Bonding is a gradually unfolding experience that can take hours, days, weeks, or even months to develop, but with breastfeeding it can take lesser time than that.

This year’s World Breastfeeding Month theme asserts the importance of increasing and sustaining the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding — in light of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) countdown, and beyond.

Precisely, women should protect, promote and support breastfeeding: it is a vital life saving goal because there is a crucial link between breastfeeding and new born survival and health.

In 1990, eight global goals, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), were set by governments and the United Nations to fight poverty and promote healthy and sustainable development in a comprehensive way by 2015.

There are regular “countdowns” to gauge progress in achieving the goals. This year’s WBW theme responds to the latest countdown by asserting the importance of increasing and sustaining the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding in the post-2015 agenda, and engaging as many groups, and people of various ages as possible.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are meant to be achieved by 2015 — next year! Although much progress has taken place, there is still a lot of “unfinished business”.

Poverty has gone down, but one in eight people still goes to bed hungry. Under nutrition, on the other hand, affects about a quarter of all children globally. Overweight, the other form of malnutrition, is becoming more common too. In the last two decades, child mortality has decreased by about 40 percent, but still almost seven million children below five die each year, mainly from preventable diseases.

As the overall rate of under-five mortality has declined, the proportion of neonatal deaths (during the first month of life) comprises an increasing proportion of all child deaths.

Globally, maternal mortality has declined from 400 per 100 000 live births in 1990 to 210 in 2010, but fewer than half of women deliver in baby-friendly maternities. By protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding, women and those around them can contribute to each of the MDGs in a substantial way.

Exclusive breastfeeding and adequate complementary feeding are key interventions for improving child survival, potentially saving about 20 percent of children under five. Let’s review how the UN’s Scientific Committee on Nutrition illustrated how breastfeeding is linked to each of the Millennium Development Goals.