BSS, Dhaka :
Health experts stressed the need for enhancing optimal breastfeeding rates for maintaining nutritional status of children, which will help avoid huge health burden.
Formula feeding is a heavy burden on the planet and the people, they said adding promoting optimal breastfeeding rates will reduce this burden.
The experts were addressing the launching ceremony of the World Breastfeeding Costing Initiative on Wednesday in the conference room of Institute of Public Health (IPH) here.
Chairman of Bangladesh Breastfeeding Foundation (BFF) Dr SK Roy, Project director of Revitalization of Community Health Initiatives in Bangladesh (RCHCIB) Dr Makhduma Nargis, head of Department of Paedriatrics of Sir Salimullah Medical College Prof Soofia Khatoon, doctors and nutrition specialists, among others, addressed the function.
Roy said optimal breastfeeding means timely initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding for two years or beyond along with introduction of appropriate and adequate complementary foods after six months.
Children should be given exclusive breastfeeding up to six months after their birth and it will have to continue till two years along with supplementary food for ensuring normal nutritional status of children, he added Dr Soofia said Infant should be given first breast milk as it contains colostrums, which is highly nutritious and has antibodies that protect the newborn from diseases Children must be given first breast milk as it make strong their body’s immune and resistance systems which help to protect them from different diseases, she added.
Others speakers said most of the mothers do not know the importance of first breast milk and in many cases newborns are deprived of first breast milk, which renders children more prone to illness by weakening their body’s immune system. Describing breastfeeding as the safe food for children, Dr said children easily digest it, which helps ensure proper mental and physical growth with reducing the chances of illness. UNICEF and WHO recommended that children be exclusively breastfeed for the first six months of life and that children be given solid or semisolid complementary foods beginning with the seventh month of life.
WHO also recommended breastfeeding should be continued through the second year of life.
