In 120 countries, World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated until August 7. It is about claiming and highlighting the benefits that for babies and also for mothers, generates this practice.
UNICEF wanted to highlight the value of breast milk as one of the possible and most effective vaccines that babies can receive as soon as they are born.
Breastfeeding can be considered as the first immunization a baby receives right after birth, It contains nutrients and also antibodies to protect them from serious diseases that affect babies.
In fact, for this NGO, postpone breastfeeding from 2 to 23 hours, increases the risk of the baby dying in the first 28 days by 40%, It should also be taken into account that when a baby is not breastfed during his first hour of life, the mother's milk production is limited and this directly affects the possibility that the child receives exclusive breastfeeding.
Eradicating customs such as that existing in some countries of feeding the baby with formula milk, cow's milk or sugar water during its first three days of life, is one of the objectives of this and other NGOs that work to promote breastfeeding as one of the most effective methods to avoid the huge numbers of infant deaths.
We are talking about the 77 million babies worldwide do not receive breast milk in their first hour of life, something that for UNICEF means that 77 million vaccines are lost in a child population, that of newborns, which accounts for half of all deaths of children under five years of age in the world. A figure of one dimension that we may have trouble understanding.
Encourage breastfeeding in the world
Promoting breastfeeding is one of the objectives on which many NGOs work. For UNICEF the figures are incontestable.
If all newborns were fed breast milk from birth until they turn six months old, they estimate that almost one million lives could be saved each year worldwide.
No, at the moment to promote breastfeeding women are not getting all the help they need after the birth of their baby. Only 43% of babies under six months worldwide receive exclusive breastfeeding and 57% of babies who do not receive it, are 14 times more likely to die while still babies.
Putting the focus on this diet, on this vaccination as defined by UNICEF, with conferences such as the World Breastfeeding Week that starts today, makes us see the absurdity of not facilitating something so healthy, so affordable and so simple for the world population .
