Breastfeed your baby.

(Baonghean) -According to the World Association for Action on Breastfeeding, breast milk not only helps children reduce the risk of death and malnutrition, but also helps children have higher intelligence quotients at 7-8 years old than children who are fed with formula milk. In addition, breastfed children will reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes in adulthood and cardiovascular diseases in old age. However, currently, the awareness of young mothers about breastfeeding is very limited.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu H (35 years old, Le Mao ward, Vinh city), owner of a beauty salon on Dinh Cong Trang street, said that she gave birth to 2 children, in the first 6 months, she mainly fed her children with milk substitutes. According to Ms. H, "Breast milk only has a certain amount and quality, after a certain threshold it will become bland and lose its quality. I see that nowadays people also produce good milk for pregnant women, especially milk for children, supplemented with many ingredients that support the mother's intelligence and physical health. If I have money and conditions, why don't I give my children that milk?" With a fairly good economic condition, each month she spends about 1 - 1.2 million VND to buy milk for her children instead of breast milk, but the baby is still malnourished and stunted. "Maybe it's because of the physical condition, I don't regret it, I give them all kinds of milk, functional foods, but they are still stunted..."

As for Trinh Lam Hoang, assistant director of a limited company, “I know that breastfeeding is good, the media recommends that babies should be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months. But time and work conditions do not allow it. I work in this profession, and getting back in shape after giving birth is extremely necessary. Meanwhile, if I breastfeed my baby exclusively, I will have to eat a lot, eat enough nutrients, and not diet... Moreover, the longer I breastfeed, the more the child will cling to the mother, and later on, they will not be very independent and will have a personality like a “rich kid with a broken nose”. So from the 3rd month, I have been giving my baby solid food and powdered milk, and he only breastfeeds a little.”

It can be seen that, at present, the awareness of young mothers in exclusively breastfeeding their children is very limited. They give a series of reasons to justify the use of milk substitutes: such as working conditions, time, and many people think that breast milk is not as nutritious as powdered milk and other foods. The worrying thing now is that because they want to quickly regain their figure after giving birth, young mothers go on a diet, limiting exclusive breastfeeding.

According to statistics from the Vietnam Nutrition and Development Program, the rate of children exclusively breastfed in Vietnam has decreased from 34% (in 1998) to 18% (in 2012), which is the leading cause of malnutrition in children. In our province, there are no official statistics, but the rate of children exclusively breastfed in the first 6 months has also tended to decrease over the years. And according to a report from the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning, by the end of 2012, the rate of malnourished children in our province was still high: 29.8% were stunted and 20.9% were underweight. One of the main causes of this problem is the misconception of young mothers about breastfeeding.



Babies need to be breastfed after birth.

In order to raise awareness among young mothers about breastfeeding, many programs and projects have been implemented in the province in recent times. First of all, it is necessary to mention the efforts of the Population - Family Planning sector in improving population quality: promoting communication work; expanding the models of "Grandmothers, Grandmothers", "Safe Motherhood", "Pre-marital Health" clubs... providing skills to raise healthy children and teach good children to young mothers. In addition, the Prime Minister's project "Educating 5 million mothers to raise and teach good children" has, in the past 3 years, 50% of mothers with young children have been trained in scientific knowledge and practices in raising and teaching children according to each age; 15% of fathers have attended communication, consultation and training sessions, and know how to share how to raise and teach children.

Along with that, the current policy of 6 months of maternity leave will be a necessary and sufficient condition for mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children, mothers will have better conditions to take care of their children, reducing the rate of stunted and malnourished children. However, the biggest barrier to breastfeeding today is the perspective and awareness of young mothers. Currently, there is no shortage of information about exclusively breastfeeding for the first 6 months, and any mother can easily access it if she wants.

However, the lack of uniformity, widespread and long-term information has limited people's knowledge about this issue. Therefore, relevant organizations need to further promote communication work so that each mother and her family has a correct and sufficient awareness of breastfeeding. At the same time, localities need to build a model of "Breastfeeding Club" for young mothers to share good parenting experiences; enhance communication skills for medical staff in villages and hamlets; organize competitions to learn and raise awareness about breastfeeding; have a mechanism to encourage young mothers to breastfeed. Functional sectors need to tighten the management and quality control of breast milk substitutes on the market...

Dr. Tram Anh - Secretary of the nutrition program - Provincial Center for Reproductive Health Care said: “The important thing is the awareness of mothers. They need to clearly understand the benefits of breast milk before and during pregnancy. To have enough milk for their children, mothers need to ensure a nutritious diet from the time of pregnancy; after giving birth, they also need to eat enough nutrients, drink lots of water, milk, vegetables, and breastfeed regularly... In the condition that the mother has to share her time with work, she should try to maintain at least 3 breastfeedings/day for her baby. Breastfeeding exclusively for the first 6 months and continuing until 2 years old is a great benefit, ensuring a good future for children when they grow up. That is also the leading factor to improve population quality”.

Duy Nam