Stakeholders In Health Sector Urge Nursing Mothers To Embrace Exclusive Breastfeeding

There are so many misconceptions about breast milk.
One of them being that it can develop a sore taste, leading to its rejection by Babies.

These wrong notion ultimately affect the child, who might have lost the natural right to healthy and exclusive breastfeeding.

However, at recent enlightenment forum organized for rural women, mostly nursing and expectant mothers, the misconceptions that come with breastfeeding and breast milk were laid bare, to promote the recommended pattern of breastfeeding.

The forum, organized by the Anambra State Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Anambra State Primary Health Care Development Agency, was to mark the annual World Breastfeeding Week, to promote the standards of exclusive breastfeeding and to educate rural women on the import of adhering to the health guidelines of healthy breastfeeding.

At the event, a concerned woman had asked if it was possible for a woman who just gave birth through Caesarean Section, popularly known as “C-S or C-section” to have a potent and running breast milk.

Sequel to that, a nursing mother had spoken about how her baby had rejected breast milk because it was said to be sour, while another mother had asked if her baby could still be breastfed while she was pregnant for another child.

In her response, the Anambra State Breastfeeding Co-ordinator, Mrs Joy Ebere-Ndu, who moderated the question and answer session, explained that a woman who had delivered through a C-section could still breastfeed her child, by introducing early initiation that is, trying to introduce breastfeeding within one hour after the child is delivered.

She noted that the idea of breast milk getting sour was wrong, as even extracted breast milk could remain fresh and healthy for up to eight hours after it was extracted, and added that it was normal and acceptable for a mother to continue to breastfeed her baby, even while pregnant for another child.

It was also explained that mother must continue to extensively avail the baby of the breast milk, as long as it desires it, a practice which must not go less than eight times each day.

Mr Felix Okocha of the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, a partner body of the Anambra State Government, applauded the achievements of the State government in quality and affordable health care services for its residents and maintained that UNICEF remained resolute in delivering all-reaching health dividends to women and children in Anambra State.