Di­rec­torate of

Women’s Health,

Min­istry of Health

The Unit­ed Na­tions’ theme for In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2022, “Gen­der Equal­i­ty To­day for a Sus­tain­able To­mor­row”, is rel­e­vant in our lo­cal con­text as it spot­lights the need to break the bias against women who re­turn to the work en­vi­ron­ment af­ter ma­ter­ni­ty leave, es­pe­cial­ly breast­feed­ing moth­ers.

Glob­al­ly, on­ly 41% of in­fants 0-6 months breast­feed ex­clu­sive­ly. Cre­at­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment in the work­place and our com­mu­ni­ties will en­cour­age breast­feed­ing in the long term, which augers well for the health of our women and their ba­bies. In ad­di­tion, re­duc­ing the stig­ma around breast­feed­ing moth­ers in the work­place can save lives and im­prove the health, so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of women in our na­tion.

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Chil­dren’s Fund rec­om­mend that breast­feed­ing ini­ti­a­tion start in the first hour of birth. Ex­clu­sive breast­feed­ing should con­tin­ue for the first six (6) months of life up to two (2) years or more with ad­e­quate com­ple­men­tary food. There are nu­mer­ous ben­e­fits de­rived from breast­feed­ing for the moth­er and the ba­by. These ben­e­fits in­clude the pro­vi­sion of nec­es­sary an­ti­bod­ies that build the im­muno­log­i­cal needs of the child, thus re­duc­ing the in­ci­dence of con­di­tions such as di­ar­rhoea, ear in­fec­tion and bac­te­r­i­al menin­gi­tis in the short term. In the long-term, breast­feed­ing plays a vi­tal role in low­er­ing the risk of chron­ic con­di­tions such as child­hood obe­si­ty, high cho­les­terol, high blood pres­sure, di­a­betes, child­hood asth­ma and leukaemia.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ex­clu­sive breast­feed­ing dur­ing the first six (6) months or longer, may re­duce the preva­lence of over­weight and obe­si­ty by about 10%. In­fant mor­tal­i­ty is sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced amongst in­fants who are breast­fed. Women who breast­feed ex­pe­ri­ence bond­ing with their ba­bies, they burn ex­tra calo­ries and lose weight af­ter de­liv­ery. When breast­feed­ing con­tin­ues for more than twelve (12) months, it can low­er their risk of breast and ovar­i­an can­cer and non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases such as Type 2 Di­a­betes Mel­li­tus, Heart Dis­ease, Obe­si­ty and High Blood Pres­sure in moth­ers.

COVID-19 and
Breast­feed­ing Prac­tices

We live in un­prece­dent­ed times as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic presents unique chal­lenges to fam­i­lies. The WHO en­cour­ages moth­ers to con­tin­ue breast­feed­ing their in­fants as breast­milk is free and con­tains the per­fect blend of nu­tri­ents de­signed to meet the needs of ba­bies. Breast­milk al­so con­tains an­ti­bod­ies that pro­tect your ba­by by fight­ing off virus­es and bac­te­ria, mak­ing vac­cines more ef­fec­tive. The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion ad­vis­es that women who are in­fect­ed with the virus should be al­lowed to con­tin­ue breast­feed­ing un­less told oth­er­wise by their health­care physi­cian. Moth­ers should al­so con­tin­ue to room in with their ba­bies and not be sep­a­rat­ed. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, COVID-19 pro­to­cols must al­ways be ob­served.

The Di­rec­torate of Women’s Health, Min­istry of Health joins the world in cel­e­brat­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day.

For more in­for­ma­tion on Women’s Health vis­it:

https://health.gov.tt/ser­vices/

wom­ens-health.