In celebration of Breastfeeding Week 2023, The Ministry of Health and wellness organized a Breastfeeding outreach pop up at the KHMH this morning. Numerous information booths ranging from feeding positions, latching methods and breastfeeding nutrition were on display for the public. Jomarie Lanza visited the pop up today.
Breast milk is proven to be the most nutritious and ideal food for infants, packed with antibodies which serves to protect babies against communicable diseases. The Ministry of Health and Wellness has continuously advocated for the rights of a breastfeeding mother to breastfeed her child exclusively during the first six months. The theme for this year's breastfeeding week is " Making A Difference For Working Parents" enabling mothers to breastfeed in the workplace.So why should we ensure that nursing mothers are supported, and have access to the resources that will allow them to exclusively feed, pump and dispel their breast milk after returning to work? We spoke to two lactation specialists today:
Yvette Masiah, Certified Lactation Counsellor
"The theme for this week breastfeeding is enabling breastfeeding helping mothers to breastfeed in the workplace, enabling them to breastfeed in the workplace. So we are especially asking business today to please provide a small room, a space for our mother who comes back to work after maternity leave so that they can continue to breastfeed. We teach breastfeeding exclusively for six months. It means that you will give that baby nothing or anything else in between, within that six months nothing but breastfeeding. And then at six months we try to bring in food from the family pot along with continuing to breastfeed, so in able to have these mothers successfully do exclusive breastfeeding we need the workplace to join in and have a space for these mothers to continue to breastfeed."
Penelope Casasola, Advanced Lactation Consultant
"The important thing is that the cause of the health aspect. We save 300 Billion US dollars globally if we do exclusive breastfeeding. You decrease
healthcare costs by exclusive breastfeeding, absenteeism because of sickness you definitely don't have children being admitted for non communicable diseases and preventable conditions. So it is really important overall economically in the workplace you get better employees because they are not taking off time because their baby is sick or they are sick so it is really really important that we get that message across that exclusive breastfeeding is not only good for the baby but also for the parents the home and the economy, for healthcare systems."
Breastfeeding can be challenging, especially for first time mothers. Apart from having access to a space to exclusively breastfeed or pump, some mothers have a hard time maintaining their milk production. It's a task that pulls a lot of energy from the mother, which is why it is important that she consumes healthy and well balanced meals.
Robyn Daly Faber, Nutritionist
"During breastfeeding a woman's nutritional intake is important she actually has a need for additional food and additional calories, so we encourage women who are breastfeeding to make sure they eat a balanced meal, we are looking at healthy options so they have to have foods from all the food groups ofc healthy options avoiding sugar, extra sugar extra fat extra salt and the additional calories. So they need to have their three meals, it's similar to when they are in pregnancy but just additional and making sure that they are on their prenatals, the prenatals well its pre and post so after the woman has given birth she is still expected to be on folic acid, iron which is in the multi vitamins that's given and that helps with the additional nutrients that she needs and having her three meals, having lots of fluid. But they should not skip meals and they should make sure that it is healthy option that they are consuming."
