CAMAGÜEY.- It is not idle to reiterate that exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life offers an exceptional opportunity for affection between the mother and the baby, just as that mother allows the restoration of her organs that intervened in the formation of the fetus, definitions defended by Dr. Ivette Alicia Prince Martínez, head of the section of the Maternal and Child Care Program (PAMI) in the province of Camagüey, 2nd specialist. degree in Pediatrics and Intensive Care and Emergencies.
Issues to take into account when, starting tomorrow, August 1, World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated, under the motto: Let's empower ourselves, let's make breastfeeding possible !, and there are several behaviors to follow to achieve it, such as promoting the initiation of that act in the first hour of life of the baby and promote equitable parental social protection, because both the mother, as well as the father and the rest of the family matters.
Dr. Ivette points out that natural milk is the only food ready to meet the nutritional requirements of the child until six months of age, protects him immunologically, is like its first vaccine and even decreases allergic disorders.Even according to scientific research, it is ensured that in the child benefited from natural milk, the dangers of suffering from chronic diseases at later ages are reduced.
Girls have to be taught that the right thing is to breastfeed their dolls, not to provide them with that milk bottle that they later make a reality when they are mothers and if possible until they are told what is the correct posture to assume since then. In any case, through health promotion and education, those who are going to give birth for the first time should be instructed on how to sit down to breastfeed and how important it is to be relaxed and dedicated to that unique act that privileges mothers.
Due to the adequate prenatal care carried out in Cuba, and that the Maternal and Child Care Program (PAMI), collects in detail, there are only some very well defined cases in which the mother is exempt from breastfeeding, as if they suffer from diseases with the possibility of being transmitted through their milk; nevertheless, at the Ana Betancourt maternal and child hospital there is a natural milk bank that benefits babies who cannot be breastfed by their parents.
At the international level, it is said that the lack of support for parents at work is one of the main barriers of achieving optimal breastfeeding, the social protection of parents with gender equality in all its forms (parental leave, maternity leave, paternity or family can help create the right environment), and this is not the case in Cuba.
However, there are gaps and misconceptions to resolve to favor mothers and children, false schemes must be broken and many are linked to modernity and even aesthetic patterns.Beyond a motto or a World Week, we must think about the future and this, there are always and will be children with a better quality of life.
Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez