It may cause a raised eye­brow at first men­tion, but one woman be­lieves it’s sim­ple log­ic and she might not be alone in her con­vic­tion af­ter all, as on­go­ing re­search by sci­en­tists glob­al­ly sug­gests breast­feed­ing has more pow­er than is re­alised.

 It’s per­haps why the man­ag­er of the Na­tion­al Breast­feed­ing Co­or­di­nat­ing Unit in the Min­istry of Health, De­bra Thomas, be­lieves breast­feed­ing can al­so re­duce the lev­els of crime in so­ci­ety in the long run.

 She ex­plained to the Sun­day Guardian that breast­fed chil­dren have the chance of grow­ing in­to bet­ter com­posed adults in so­ci­ety be­cause of its bind­ing ef­fect.

 “We are look­ing at breast­feed­ing be­ing the se­cu­ri­ty for the coun­try be­cause bond­ing en­sures that well-ad­just­ed in­di­vid­ual. The more well-ad­just­ed in­di­vid­u­als we have in so­ci­ety, the more con­struc­tive adults we will have and few­er feuds and con­flicts that can lead to crime.” 

Thomas said so on Au­gust 3, at the an­nu­al World Breast­feed­ing Week Fun Walk, held at the Women’s Hos­pi­tal in Mt Hope. The event was staged in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Health, PA­HO, TT Moves and the Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

World Breast­feed­ing Week is ob­served glob­al­ly each year from Au­gust 3 to 7 and high­lights the im­por­tance of breast­feed­ing and a moth­er’s right to breast­feed. Thomas in­di­cat­ed the fun walk was just the first event to mark the start of a year of ac­tiv­i­ties by the unit to raise aware­ness on the sig­nif­i­cance of breast­feed­ing. She said they would take a very close look at the lack of sup­port sys­tems, which may have en­cour­aged the scarci­ty of breast­feed­ing. 

 To cor­rob­o­rate Thomas’s claims, the Sun­day Guardian did a Google search and found sev­er­al pieces of lit­er­a­ture on the top­ic. Though not specif­i­cal­ly link­ing breast­feed­ing to a re­duc­tion in crime, all seemed to agree that a well-breast­fed child leads a more pos­i­tive and pro­duc­tive life.

 Ev­i­dence of this com­ing out of a re­search study done by a Brazil­ian uni­ver­si­ty has even been pub­lished in The Lancet Glob­al Health Jour­nal.

 In its find­ings, the Fed­er­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Pelotas in Brazil re­vealed the first ev­i­dence that pro­longed breast­feed­ing not on­ly in­creas­es in­tel­li­gence un­til at least the age of 30 years but al­so has an im­pact both at an in­di­vid­ual and so­ci­etal lev­el by im­prov­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al at­tain­ment and earn­ing abil­i­ty.

 The long-term study, which be­gan by re­searchers in Brazil in the 1980s, led by Dr Bernar­do Lessa Hor­ta, fol­lowed near­ly 6,000 ba­bies from birth en­abling them for the first time to get an idea of the long-term ef­fects of breast­feed­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion on the re­port pub­lished in an ar­ti­cle found on www.the­guardian.com, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3,500 of those ba­bies now 30-year-old adults agreed to be screened and sit IQ tests for the study. The re­sults re­vealed and con­firmed those who had been breast­fed, were more as­tute, pur­sued longer aca­d­e­m­ic lives and earned more than those who had not been. It added those who breast­fed for longer pe­ri­ods al­so gen­er­al­ly tend­ed to do bet­ter.

 Pres­i­dent of the T&T Mid­wives As­so­ci­a­tion, Mar­cia Rol­lock, agreed with Thomas’s view and said that aside from the long-term ben­e­fits, ba­bies who are breast­fed reap im­me­di­ate health as­sets as well as moth­ers. She said breast­feed­ing was al­so eco­nom­ic and helps in sus­tain­ing the en­vi­ron­ment.

 “Breast­feed­ing pro­tects the moth­er against de­vel­op­ing Type 2 di­a­betes, breast can­cer and hip frac­tures lat­er in life. It al­so helps her to form a clos­er bond with the ba­by and saves mon­ey. Breast milk con­tains an­ti­bod­ies that help your ba­by fight off virus­es and bac­te­ria. And those breast­fed en­tire­ly for the first six months of their lives with­out the in­clu­sion of for­mu­la have a greater chance against de­vel­op­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness, ear in­fec­tions, and di­ges­tive prob­lems,” said Rol­lock.

 As it per­tains to the en­vi­ron­ment, she said that with breast­feed­ing there was no need for plas­tic bot­tles and emp­ty tins of in­fant for­mu­la for dis­pos­al.

Lac­ta­tion units need­ed on the job

For breast­feed­ing to be­come “nor­mal” again, Thomas said an­oth­er pur­suit by the unit would be heavy lob­by­ing for work­places to be­come more ‘breast­feed­ing and moth­er-friend­ly.’

 “We are im­plor­ing em­ploy­ers to con­sid­er in­clud­ing lac­ta­tion units at the work­place. It is a sim­ple lit­tle room we’re ask­ing for…noth­ing fan­cy, just a pri­vate lit­tle room where a woman can ex­press and store.”

 Thomas said even in this present day women are faced with a lot of myths when it comes to breast­feed­ing. And re­it­er­at­ed the lack of sup­port for moth­ers re­turn­ing to the work­place. She said moth­ers must be able to feed on de­mand and that meant when­ev­er and where ever.

 At the fun walk, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, who was the event’s fea­tured speak­er, had said over the last few decades the world had tak­en a nasty turn when it comes to sham­ing women who breast­feed in pub­lic and that was some­thing T&T need­ed to work against. He said women should have the right to breast­feed in pub­lic with­out be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against.

 Thomas praised both Cen­tral Bank of T&T and the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion for be­ing ex­cep­tion­al and pi­o­neer­ing in their es­tab­lish­ing of lac­ta­tion units to sup­port moth­ers on the job.

 Ac­cord­ing to Lau­ra Adat­ti, the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s (ILO) ma­ter­ni­ty pro­tec­tion and work-fam­i­ly spe­cial­ist, the lack of sup­port at the work­place is one of the main rea­sons why women stop breast­feed­ing be­fore the rec­om­mend­ed time.

 Six years ago, though 65 per cent of coun­tries across the globe had en­gaged in some form of leg­is­la­tion to al­low moth­ers cer­tain priv­i­leges in the work­place, Adat­ti said a quar­ter of all coun­tries still did not pro­vide breast­feed­ing breaks in the work­place—es­pe­cial­ly in Asia, Latin Amer­i­ca, and the Caribbean—a much-need­ed change. 

 She had told ILO news, hav­ing ac­cess to paid ma­ter­ni­ty leave and in­for­ma­tion should not be where the buck stopped. It is her be­lief “a work­place that is ‘breast­feed­ing-friend­ly’ pro­vides women with com­fort­able, pri­vate fa­cil­i­ties to ex­press breast milk, ac­cess to a fridge to store it, a clean and safe en­vi­ron­ment, as well as day-care fa­cil­i­ties and fam­i­ly-friend­ly work­ing time arrange­ments for both women and men, if fea­si­ble.”