Bay mums join World Breastfeeding Week
Shanti Burgess and Kelly Bannister at latch on with their babies last Friday. Photo: Ina Holst.
Eight tiny participants latched on to their mums at the Wholemeal Café last Friday during the local celebration of World Breastfeeding Week.
At 10.30am exactly, Golden Bay mothers joined other mums throughout the country to express their support for breastfeeding, hoping to break last year’s record of the 1122 women recorded as having breastfed simultaneously.
Kere Field, with baby Kora Joy, said she supported the event because “breastfeeding is such a good and healthy way to feed a baby and it is nice to acknowledge it in a public place and get all the mums together socially.” Goodies and coffee were provided by Tyler Langford of Plunket.
Event organiser and midwife Celia Butler said that breastfed babies get less sick or are sick less often than formula-fed babies because breast milk builds babies’ immunity.
“Over 90 per cent of mums are breastfeeding their new babies and I’d like to see breastfeeding as the norm. Humans are a carrying species and breast milk is designed for that. It is a balanced composition for babies designed to feed frequently.”
Celia says those women who cannot breastfeed, however, should not despair. “Even for mothers who have to feed formula, if their babies can have some breast milk, they can get some of that magic component of breast milk which protects them from infection and gives them optimum growth and development. I am looking forward to the day when we can have breast milk banking again, which was stopped at the time of HIV.”
This year’s theme, “Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response”, highlights the importance of breastfeeding not only as a healthy choice in everyday life but also as a lifesaver in emergencies. In the Sichuan earthquake in China in 2008, a police officer mother of a six-month-old baby made headlines by breastfeeding babies orphaned or separated from their mothers.
The World Health Organisation pointed out that in an emergency or natural disaster, infants and young children become vulnerable to disease and death, with child mortality soaring up to 70 times higher than average due to diarrhoea, respiratory illness and malnutrition. In extreme situations, when access to shelter, neighbours, electricity, phone services, shops, medical care and reliable water are disrupted, breastfeeding can become a life-saving intervention.
Ina Holst
