Saturday, January 19, 2013

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

2 comments:

  1. I believe that breastfeeding is important for the child the first year of their life. Therefore, whether the child is in a home or school setting the concept of breastfeeding should be promoted. Nevertheless, it will be important to supplement formula if the baby can not digest or grasps the concept of receiving the breast milk for their mother. I think it is benefit for the parent to breast feed their baby for their breast and with a bottle; therefore,the child will get use to both regardless if he or she is at daycare or home.

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  2. Ana,
    I enjoyed reading about your experiences with breastfeeding. I definitely agree that the amount of support a mother receives in this stage is so important. My mother was a constant support to my sisters; encouraging them to continue when it was challenging and give it time. Perhaps one day I will have the opportunity to breast feed one of my own!
    Caitlin

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