Child Development and Public Health

Breastfeeding

For this assignment, I choose to focus on breastfeeding. As a mother of three, I breastfed all my children. Maybe not as long as I would have liked to with my first two children, but with my last one, I felt more ready, better educated, had more support and was able to breastfed the longest . With my first two, I was young, did not have that support and encouragement, life style was bit more hectic, making the situation more stressful. 

Breastfeeding in my culture is very important overall. Growing up I saw my mom breastfeed my younger sisters, mu aunts breastfed my cousins, it was part of the culture. I believe is all about how the mom feels about breastfeeding, how much she knows and understand about it, support from either family or partner and  patience you can have to really do it. Circumstances can differ from moms to babies. 

Nevertheless, how long you breast feed your child can also be a personal choice. With respect to the length of time moms around the world  breastfeed according to the World's Health Organization and the UNICEF mentions that breastfeeding usually starts within hours of baby being born and can last up to 6 month in most cases it can last more than 24 months and up. Therefore, after 6 months breastfeeding is accompany by other supplement foods (Bosco, 2012). Countries like India and Rwanda, a high percentage of mothers breastfeed their infants up to the age of two. I found that in my country of Peru the UNICEF mentions that  47% of mother will feed their infants up to or past the age of two (Bosco, 2012). On the contrast, reports were not found for the US due to the fact that statistics have not been collected for prolonged breastfeeding past 12 months. One of the reasons is that initiation and continuation for breastfeeding is not much supported in the US (Bosco, 2012). Educating our moms to be from the beginning is essential as well as letting them know of the great consequences it has in their babies. This information brings me back to my own personal experience, when I was very young, not very well educated, not enough support,etc., was not able to continue past the five months of breastfeeding. Looking back and have learned, experienced much more, I am able to help manycof my mom's who are expecting at this time by supporting them by talking about the importance of breastfeeding and what a great way to form those bond and attachments with their child.

Reference

Bosco, M. (2012, ). Fitzgerald Health Education Associates, Inc.. Around the world, how long do women 

breastfeed?.Retrieved January 18, 2013, from http://fhea.com/main/content/breastfeeding/june2012.pdf

Personal Childbirth Experience and Around the World

Out of my three birthing experience, I decided to pick my first one. I was 19 at the time, very young and married. At that time, I did not know what to expect, it was all so new and unpredictable. I remember going to all my doctor's appointments, following their suggestions the best I could.I got to attend birthing classes even though I got to do them by myself. I was also advised by my moms own cultural beliefs on what to do, what to eat, etc., as well as by my in-laws. My goal was to not have any pain medication and have my bay the most natural way I could. At childbirth, after 12 hours of labor and pain my son was born. My mom was there as well as my baby's dad the entire time. I was very fortunate to have had my mom live with me the first couple of weeks to help with my newborn and new schedule. When he was born, all I could ask was if he was healthy and yep sure after that he gave a big cry, it was all good.

For my around the world childbirth information, I decided to look back at my own place, Peru. I am glad, I did because I found an article called :"A case study: The impact of maternal health in Peru" (CARE, 2006). In general this article talks about the life of two expectant mothers whom live in the most remote poor areas in the highlands of Peru, where there is no doctors at times or suitable health clinics that can deal with childbirth complications, etc. One part of this study mentions the lack of importance given to the women in this areas where men tend to be the one in control. Another issue is the lack of prenatal care before and after childbirth, not available for these moms. In order to fix this terrible problem, the CARE's Foundation to Enhance Management of Maternal Emergencies, has been working very hard to decrease mother's dying when complications occur at time of childbirth. 
One other information I learned was that quechua women in other words, women from the highlands give birth vertically, standing up. 

I encourage you to read this article, although I am from Peru, I learned something very new to me, so glad I found it

Reference

CARE (2006). A Case Study: The impact of maternal health in Peru. Retrieved from: 
            
            http://www.care.org/campaigns/mothersmatter/downloads/Peru-Case-Study.pdf