Taking care of offspring is inevitable as today’s children are tomorrow’s future and prospect of the nation is depended on healthy citizen. But, in many cases taking care properly of children could not be possible.
Raima, who is working in a private firm, became mother of her first baby on last April, but unfortunately she has to join work after three months which has posed difficulties for breast feeding to her new born baby.
She started to keep her breast milk by pumping out in a bottle, but it was not sufficient for her baby and that is why Raima’s mother-in-law has begun to give her granddaughter food supplement (powder milk) to solve the issue. Few days later, the adorable new born baby -Rafiza Binte Maisha fell sick.
The story of four-month old Ujan is almost similar to Maisha, although the baby’s mother Shaheda is not a service holder but she has another problem. So, Shaheda has started to give food supplement to Ujan when he was two months old alongside breastfeeding.
According to experts, breastfeeding is very essential and important for the physical and mental growth of children, and especially mother’s breastfeeding has no alternative till the six months of a baby. They said the baby does not need any food supplement if mother has sufficient breastfeeding. Many mothers want to give food supplement to their babies but they do this for lack of knowledge.
Dr Saidur Rahman, Specialist of Dhaka Shishu Hospital, said the breast feeding has all types of nutrition for baby along with 90 percent of water. So, only breast feeding is sufficient till the six months of a baby, he added.
Rahman said mothers, especially in village, try to give water to the new born baby after one/two month of birth which is not acceptable in anyhow. “Breastfeeding works as the first vaccine of a baby and make the immune system effective quickly.”
He said breastfeeding keeps baby away from different diseases, especially pneumonia, diarrhoea, asthma, allergy etc. In addition, breastfeeding also reduce probability of cancer, diabetics, high blood pressure and few others diseases, added Dr Saidur Rahman.
Echoing Dr Rahman, specialist of the same hospital Professor Dr Monir Hossain said breast feeding also develop strong immune system in baby’s body alongside quick mental growth.
He said mental growth of those babies who get breastfeeding develop quicker than the babies feed powder milk, as breast feeding has all necessary nutrition required for baby which is not in powder milk.
Raima said she did not give anything except breastfeeding to her baby in the first three months, but problem arises when she joined office after maternal leave. “I have been forced to give powder milk as the breast feed what I used to keep through pumping out was not sufficient for my baby till evening,” she added.
