Dr Betta Edu, former Director General of Cross River Primary Health Care Development Agency
(CRPHCDA) on Tuesday advised women who refused to breastfeed their babies for fear of having saggy breast that “the breast would definitely change shape and size with age.”
She said this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar on the occasion of the World Breastfeeding Week, celebrated annually in more than 120 countries around the globe between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7 to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies.
The theme for this year’s celebration is “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding” to promote exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of baby’s life.
The doctor disclosed that women who did not breastfeed were doing themselves harm as breastfeeding reduced the risk of breast cancer in women, while increasing the bond between mother and child.
She said malnutrition was the highest killer of children as close to 58 per cent of deaths in children actually happened as a result of primary or secondary malnutrition.
She added that breastfeeding was one of the surest ways of ensuring that the child got the appropriate nutrition, immunity and protection from infections, noting that “in underdeveloped countries like Nigeria, complementary feeding exposes children to infections due to low hygiene level.
“I am an advocate of exclusive breastfeeding, you don’t have to deprive your child of good nutrition because you want a standing breast, your breast would still sag, anyway.
“You don’t expect your breast to be the way it was when you were 16 at age 30 and 40, no matter the magic you do, your breast would never be the way it was, so, no need of avoiding what would be, just go ahead and breastfeed the child.
“As public health physicians, we are bothered about the first 1000 days of the child’s life which commences at conception because it is the most critical period of the child’s growth, if it is missed, it affects the child even when he is grown.
“So, once a woman gets pregnant, we want her to be on folic acid, eat the right food, get B¹² and other supplements
that will prevent anaemia and support the brain development of the child which begins in the womb.
“After delivery, we advocate exclusive breastfeeding for first six months and the child must be started with breast milk after the first one hour of birth as this helps the womb to contract and increase bonding.
“Breast milk has everything from water to protein and carbohydrate that the child require, as no child would thrive without proper nutrition, we encourage exclusive breastfeeding.
“There is nothing like modernisation, every mammal that gives birth breastfeeds, so humans too should breastfeed their babies; it makes no sense to start giving a child milk from animals when your own milk is there,” she cautioned nursing mothers.
She then canvassed for six months maternity leave for working mothers for effective exclusive breastfeeding.
“We cannot grow the next generation without breast feeding because we will just have people who are mentally weak and will continue to have ills in the society because the children are not well breastfed, so they cannot think well”, she said. (NAN)
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