August is Minnesota Breastfeeding Awareness Month, in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week, Aug. 1-7. In honor of this observance, the Cook County WIC program and other organizations throughout the world are working to increase awareness of and support for breastfeeding.
The importance of breastfeeding for both mother and baby has been well established in numerous studies. One of the latest studies, published in the May 2010 issue of Pediatrics,
shows that breastfeeding can also significantly reduce health care costs and prevent deaths.
According to the authors of The Burden of Suboptimal
Breastfeeding in the United
States,
“If 90 percent of U.S. families could comply with medical recommendations to breastfeed exclusively for six months, the United States would save $13 billion per year and prevent an excess 911 deaths, nearly all of which would be infants.”
Unfortunately, women face many barriers that can keep them from breastfeeding to recommended levels. Thatis why the Cook County WIC program is working to spread the word that everybody has a role in supporting breastfeeding. “It is important for everyone in the community to support breastfeeding,” said Teresa Borak, director of the Cook County WIC program. “This includes families, friends, employers, child care providers, the health care system, faith communities and many others.”
Breastfeeding Just 10 steps!
The Baby-Friendly Way
is this year’s worldwide breastfeeding theme. It was chosen to draw attention to the 10 steps that help support breastfeeding in hospitals. These ten steps can be adapted to clinics, public health agencies, and other settings. The ten steps are:
1. Have a written
breastfeeding policy
that is routinely
communicated to all
health care staff.
2. Train all health care staff
in skills necessary to
implement this policy.
3. Inform all pregnant
women about
the benefits and
management of
breastfeeding.
4. Help mothers initiate
breastfeeding within a
half-hour of birth.
5. Show mothers how to
breastfeed and how
to maintain lactation,
even if they should be
separated from their
infants.
6. Give newborn infants
no food or drink other
than breast milk unless
medically indicated.
7. Practice rooming-in—
allowing mothers
and infants to remain
together for 24 hours a
day.
8. Encourage breastfeeding
on demand.
9. Give no artificialteats
or pacifiers (also called
dummies or soothers) to
breastfeeding infants.
10. Foster the establishment
of breastfeeding support
groups and refer mothers
to them on discharge
from the hospital or
clinic.
“There are many simple things, like these ten steps, that we can do to support breastfeeding women, infants and families in our community,” said Teresa Borak. “If we all work together, we can improve the health of our babies and mothers and also save health care costs and lives.”
WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Karina Roth said resources provided by the WIC program include peer counseling and a breastfeeding support group. The support group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 10 am in the WIC room at Sawtooth Mountain Clinic.
For more information about World Breastfeeding Week, visit www.worldbreastfeedingweek. org/.
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