The Role of Public Health in Promoting Breastfeeding

Introduction:

Breastfeeding is a precious milestone in the life of both a mother and her child. Previously, there were many wrong notions about breastfeeding among people, which made many women refrain from breastfeeding their children. Breastfeeding is accompanied by health benefits for both the mother and the child. It protects the child from various infections by providing the child with the necessary nutrition required to build a strong immune system. It spares women from developing breast cancers and other ill-effects of hormone imbalances. However, some women fail to breastfeed due to their health limitations. To address this issue, many pregnant women are encouraged to enroll themselves in antenatal classes and get the necessary treatments that make them breastfeed their babies. Many public health initiatives and awareness programs have been conducted in recent times to promote the health benefits of breastfeeding and have been successful in this regard in reaching many and continue to reach the unreached.

How Important Is Breastfeeding?

Apart from improving the overall well-being of mother and child, breastfeeding plays a vital role in improving various ecological aspects, which include:

Health Benefits:

• Breast milk makes the newborn baby thrive as it is uniquely formulated according to the human infant’s nutritional needs.

• Breast milk contains immunological and anti-inflammatory essentials required to fight against various infections for both the mother and the child.

• Short-term health risks like diarrhea and acute otitis media (acute ear infection) are more commonly associated with children who are formula-fed than the ones who are breastfed exclusively for six months.

• Major diseases like leukemia and severe lower respiratory tract infections are more likely to be found in formula-fed babies.

• The risk of developing sudden infant death syndrome is high in infants who are never breastfed.

• Premature babies whose immunity is already compromised are at high risk of contracting necrotizing enterocolitis (a life-threatening disease in newborn children caused by inflammation of the intestine, which may be complicated further by bacterial infection) if formula-fed.

• Moreover, formula feeding increases the chances of developing chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, asthma, and childhood obesity.

• Mothers who do not breastfeed are at increased risk of getting breast cancer and ovarian cancer than the ones who breastfeed their babies.

• Good maternal health outcomes are mostly associated with exclusive and prolonged breastfeeding practices.

Psychosocial Benefits:

• Apart from the health benefits, women who breastfeed experience the psychological advantage of building an emotional bond between themselves and their babies.

• Breastfeeding can also aid in reducing post-delivery depression cases. Depression can negatively impact the health of both the mother and the child.

Economic Benefits:

• Breastfeeding also impacts the economic status of patients and individuals (directly) and also of the hospitals and country indirectly.

• Research shows that families who encouraged adequate breastfeeding practices did not have to invest in infant formula food in the first year of the child.

• Also, the incidence of disease and infection rates is reduced with breastfeeding, which in turn results in fewer insurance claims and fewer hospital visits, which increases the productivity of the parents, thus contributing to the economic growth of the country.

• Breastfeeding can contribute to lower healthcare costs associated with reduced cases of various diseases and illnesses in small children.

• The health care burden can be decreased by reducing the prevalence of cases of certain chronic diseases like sudden infant death syndrome, hospitalization for lower respiratory tract infection in small children, atopic dermatitis (an itchy skin with inflammation), childhood leukemia (blood cancer), childhood obesity, childhood asthma, and type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Environmental Benefits:

• Breastfeeding exclusively for six months even contributes to better environmental outcomes as the need for packaged milk is completely less as it is thrown into the environment after use, causing environmental pollution.

• The containers in which the formula nutrition is given to babies are rarely recycled and hence remain in landfills.

• Breastfeeding is a simple physiological process when compared to formula food, which requires fuel, container, paper, and transportation from place to place to get delivered to the families, thus consuming a lot of global resources and energy, which could be otherwise saved by opting to breastfeed.

What Are the Public Health Strategies for Promoting Breastfeeding?

It is not just the duty of public health sectors to create awareness about the importance of breastfeeding; rather, every individual, family, and community should join hands with public health to promote the importance of breastfeeding to the unknown. Hence, various sectors of the community have realized their role in promoting breastfeeding, which include:

Role of Mother and Her Family:

• Inculcating the importance of breastfeeding in improving a mother’s and her child’s health among new mothers and their families.

• Conducting classes on breastfeeding for new mothers.

• The healthcare providers should make the pregnant women feel comfortable in gaining knowledge about breastfeeding and keep themselves ready to breastfeed when the baby is born.

• New mothers need to be encouraged and supported to breastfeed their babies for longer and flexible periods of time to harness better health outcomes for themselves and their babies.

• The role of the father and the family is crucial in supporting breastfeeding. Usually, a mother relies on her husband and family to give her consent to breastfeeding and follows whatever they say.

• Hence, awareness programs should be conducted to reach the mother’s primary support- the father and the family to encourage and not become a barrier to breastfeeding.

• The family members can be given awareness through classes and should be scheduled according to the convenience of the family.

Role of Community:

• Communities should strengthen the counseling programs that are conducted to create awareness about breastfeeding through peer groups, which proves to be quite influential on new mothers. Also, the duration and flexibility of breastfeeding need to be emphasized in such programs.

• Incorporating breastfeeding programs among other public health programs to reach new families.

• Encouraging and funding the small nonprofit organizations that create awareness among breastfeeding.

• Providing easy and all-time access to resources that support breastfeeding.

• Marketing the infant formula should be in such a way that it does not impact breastfeeding negatively.

• Ensuring the claims done regarding the formula milk are truthful and not misleading.

• Make sure that the healthcare providers do not advertise formula milk for their patients.

• Communities should cater to the needs of breastfeeding women by providing various resources like peer support networks, breastfeeding clinics, lactation consultants, and support groups.

Role of the Healthcare Sector:

• New mothers rely on their healthcare providers and consider them as better resources for acquiring guidance on breastfeeding. Hence, the caregivers need to be well-versed and competent in teaching the art of breastfeeding to their patients. Inadequate education and training of clinicians have been identified as a major barrier to breastfeeding.

• Inculcate breastfeeding topics in the curriculum of undergraduate and graduate education and training for health professionals.

• In the case of sick infants who are not able to drink breast milk due to their admission to intensive care units, disabled babies who cannot have breast milk are indicated to have donated human milk.

• The donated human milk is beneficial in such cases as it protects the child from various diseases and infections.

• However, various barriers like high cost, transport, and lack of adequate evidence make such special children deprived of good health due to the lack of availability of donated human milk.

• Hence, barriers to providing donated human milk in special cases need to be identified and managed in time to provide better treatment outcomes.

Role of Employment:

• The management should encourage new mothers by providing paid maternity leave.

• It is the responsibility of the management and employers to arrange for awareness programs on lactation and breastfeeding for their employees.

• When nursing mothers resume their work, they need to be provided with break time and a private place to feed their babies at work.

• Various strategies need to be implemented to encourage nursing mothers to carry out breastfeeding at ease by giving them break times, flexible working hours, part-time working facilities, telecommuting, keeping the baby while doing her work, and access to childcare centers.

Conclusion:

Breastfeeding is an essential service that every new mother needs to practice to care for her baby and herself. Infants who are breastfed exclusively for at least six months are more likely to be healthy when compared to the ones who are not breastfed. Hence, public health sectors need to give special attention and devise strategies to identify various barriers to breastfeeding and address them immediately to lower the health, economic, environmental, and psychosocial burden on the community.