Enhancing capacity during World Breast-feeding Week

THE recent looting and violence, and the impact they had on health-care services for mothers and their new-borns, have again highlighted the important role breast-feeding plays in securing food and promoting good outcomes for children.

This was the message from Stasha Jordan, executive director of the SA Breastmilk Reserve, and Dr Chantelle Witten, nutrition lead at the SA Civil Society for Women’s, Adolescents’ and Children’s Health.

This comes at the start of World Breast-feeding Week 2021.

The annual event runs from August 1-7, and this year focusses on how breast-feeding contributes to the survival, health and well-being of all, and the imperative to protect breast-feeding worldwide.

The theme is aligned with thematic area 2 of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which highlights the links between breastfeeding and survival, health and wellbeing of women, children and nations.

“The chaos that we saw during the violence in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal echoed the kind of disruptions we also observed during the first days of lockdown. It brought into focus the fragile food system and growing concerns around food security for most people. As far as babies and breastfeeding mothers are concerned, the same kind of disruptions played itself out when it comes to access to food when they were left with no real access to formula milk,” Jordan said.

It was further exacerbated by some dangerous recipes for home-made formula milk, she said

“A call was put out to the SA Breastmilk Reserve to mobilise support for the human milk banks affected by the recent riots and to engage in health literacy that promotes breast-feeding to achieve food security for babies.

“While food deliveries to KZN province resumed after 7 days, many mothers had to leave the safety of their homes to drive long distances to find formula milk,” Jordan says.

An emergency stakeholder group was formed to raise donations of breast milk for affected areas.

This emergency stakeholder group ignited a strong network of lactation consultants, human milk bankers, healthcare professionals and policy makers to co-ordinate and co-operate in promoting breastfeeding and advocacy for breastfeeding as the public health strategy to protect children in extreme situations when food insecurity is compromised.

The emergency stakeholder group was instrumental in activating a breastmilk drive that resulted in the collection of 100 units of breastmilk in support of iThembaLethu breastmilk bank and through the group transport and volunteers rallied to get the breast milk from Joburg to the facility in Durban.

“As breastfeeding advocates, we recognise the gaps in scaling up efforts for the protection, promotion, and support for breastfeeding. Without a strong culture of breastfeeding, raising donations for human milk banking becomes very difficult,” Witten said.

Now more than ever, she believes the KZN situation has highlighted the urgent need to expand and intensify efforts to pursue all avenues to support breastfeeding mothers throughout the health system, in their workplaces and in their social settings.

“We realise that education and support of new mothers as well as the upskilling of healthcare professionals to promote and support breastfeeding is imperative as an on-going activity because breastfeeding is an everyday practice requiring skilled support.

“Our role as breastfeeding advocates and health educators is key to maintaining mother and baby-friendly values both in the health system and at the community level,” Witten said.