By Sisathi Nomatye
As the World Breasfeeding Week come to an end today, the Phillips Africa Innovation Hub, published findings that show what prevents women from breasfeeding their newborn babies.
Breast milk is by far every health-worker’s first choice for new mothers, not only does it protect children from diseases but it greatly reduces the risks of sicknesses and it supports brain development. To get a better understanding of the shortcomings that mothers in Africa experience when it comes to breastfeeding, the Phillips Africa Innovation Hub team conducted desk research and consultations with both local and international experts. The researched focused on the barriers that women face when they return to work at the end of maternity leave. The team spoke to plus minus 400 working mothers with children under 2 years old through one on one interviews, focus groups as well as surveys.
The findings revealed that lactating mothers know and understand the important role that breast milk plays in the healthy development of a child, but due to constraints in balancing work and motherhood proved to be difficult and maternity leave being restricted to a few months also does not make it easy to continue breastfeeding. Other challenges include unsupportive work environments, limited access to breast milk expressing facilities and restricted early initiation of breastfeeding. Another barrier for new mothers is wanting to express breast milk but with no space to express comfortably, especially in public areas.
The goal behind the World Breastfeeding Week is to promote a culture of breastfeeding where women feel empowered through expressing breast milk and to find a way to balance work with breast feeding through innovation. The Phillips Africa Innovation Hub plans on utilizing these findings to assist countries with the development of their infant population. World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated by women from across the globe and it is hoped the innitiavitve will encourage women to continue promoting the importance of breastfeeding. As part of its pledge to support the “Every Women Every Child” initiative in Africa and Asia, Phillips Africa Innovation Hub wants to assist women in urban Africa to overcome breastfeeding obstacles. This initiative is intended to inspire women to feel empowered as they exclusively breastfeed their newborn babies. The World Breastfeeding Week is an annual celebration by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding (WABA) that dates back to 1992. It intends to remind the world to commit to breastfeeding, review progress and identify areas for improvement.
