In 120 countries, the World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated until next August 7. It is about claiming and highlighting the benefits that this practice generates for babies and also for mothers.
UNICEF has 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 that 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, postponing breastfeeding from 2 to 23 hours increases the risk of the baby dying in the first 28 days by 40%, in addition, it must be taken into account that when a baby is not breastfed during In the first hour of life, the mother’s milk production is limited and this directly affects the possibility of the child receiving exclusive breastfeeding.
Eradicate customs such as the one that exists in some countries of feeding the baby with formula milk, cow’s milk or sugar water during the first three days of life, is one of the objectives of this and other NGOs that work promoting breastfeeding such as one of the most effective methods to avoid the enormous numbers of infant deaths.
We are talking about the 77 million babies around the world, who 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 infants. newborns, which accounts for half of all deaths of children under five years of age that occur in the world. A figure of a dimension that perhaps it is difficult for us to understand.
Promote breastfeeding in the world
Encouraging breastfeeding is one of the objectives that many NGOs work on. For UNICEF the figures are incontestable.
If all newborns were breastfed from birth to six months, they estimate that nearly a million lives could be saved each year worldwide.
No, at the moment to promote breastfeeding women are not receiving all the help they need after the birth of their baby. Only 43% of babies under six months of age worldwide are exclusively breastfed and 57% of babies who are not breastfed are 14 times more likely to die while still infants.
Putting the focus on this diet, on this vaccination as defined by UNICEF, with days such as World Breastfeeding Week that starts today, makes us see the absurdity of not providing something so healthy, so affordable and so simple for the world population .
Via | unicef.es
Photos | iStockphoto
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