ONE of the most important benefits of breastfeeding, particularly exclusive breastfeeding, is that it helps delay women’s fertility.
Family planning groups have actually long been encouraging mothers in poor households to exclusively breastfeed their infants and avoid infant formula, which may not even be economically viable as it is out of reach of many poor families.
This way, family planners say that mothers are likely to avoid closely-spaced pregnancies, as well as babies born close to one another.
Breastfeeding is, therefore, the cheapest method of family planning which enables couples bring up healthy children as these are adequately well-spaced.
This gives ample time for mothers to have their bodies grow strong again as opposed to a situation where they give birth to babies one after another at shorter intervals.
Breastfeeding is, therefore, good for the health of mothers and is especially commended for women in lower-income brackets, many of whom are even opposed to modern methods of family planning involving the use of pills which they claim tend to have side effects in the long run.
In addition, health workers who have conducted studies on breastfeeding say that the practice lowers the risk of breast and ovarian cancers as well as anaemia in mothers.
They say that breastfeeding further helps mothers to lose weight which they may have otherwise gained at a faster rate during pregnancy.
Breastfeeding is not only advantageous to mothers, but breast milk is also said to be the best food for the baby because it is very rich in vitamins and nutrients, proteins, fat, as well as carbohydrates, all of which are essential for the good health of the growing baby.
Nutritionists further advise that antibodies contained in breast milk ensure the protection of babies against all types of diseases such as childhood diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer before the age of 15, to name just a few.
Another advantage is that children who get exclusively breastfed have a decreased risk of tooth decay, according to medics.
Some research work by a team of health personnel showed that young children who were breastfed as infants scored higher marks on intelligence tests than their formula-fed counterparts.
The researchers concluded that the longer and more exclusively babies were breastfed, the more intelligent they would become later in life.
There is, therefore, every reason to salute any organisation that is helping with the promotion of breastfeeding among women in the country.
These bodies include the UN System that has pledged its commitment to supporting the Zambian Government to raise breastfeeding rates and any initiatives which they say scale up the creation of breastfeeding supportive environments.
It is further pleasing to hear that Zambia is among the frontrunners of two major advocacy efforts to accelerate the reduction of preventable child deaths, namely, the ‘Promise Renewed’ focusing on under-five and maternal mortality, and the ‘Scaling up Nutrition Movement’ intended to lower child stunting rates in the country.
According to Unicef, both efforts have recognised the critical importance of breastfeeding to child survival and reduction in their stunting. These are very commendable efforts indeed!