NEW DELHI – Malnutrition is responsible for about one third of deaths among children under five. Above two thirds of these deaths, often associated with inappropriate feeding practices, occur during the first year of life.
The World Health Organisation now says that nutrition during the first years of life are crucial for life-long health.
In infancy, no gift is more precious than breastfeeding, yet barely one in three infants is exclusively breastfed during the first six months of life across the world.
The recommendation is clear — infants start breastfeeding within one hour of life and are exclusively breastfed for six months.
Breast milk provides all the energy and nutrients that the infant needs for the first months of life, and it continues to provide up to half of a child’s nutritional needs during the second half of the first year, and up to one-third during the second year of life.
While breastfeeding is a natural act, it is also a learned behaviour.
Research has demonstrated that mothers require active support for establishing and sustaining appropriate breastfeeding practices.
Unicef says that despite compelling evidence that exclusive breastfeeding prevents diarrhea and pneumonia, global rates of breastfeeding have remained relatively stagnant in the developing world, growing from 32% in 1995 to 39% in 2010.
“If breastfeeding were promoted more effectively, we would see more children survive, with lower rates of disease and lower rates of malnutrition and stunting,” said Unicef executive director Anthony Lake.
It therefore says that strong national policies supporting breastfeeding could prevent the deaths of around one million children under five in the developing world each year.
The recent Lancet Nutrition Series also highlighted the remarkable fact that a non-breastfed child is 14 times more likely to die in the first six months than an exclusively breastfed child.
Experts say breast milk promotes sensory and cognitive development and protects the infant against infectious and chronic diseases.
Breastfeeding also contributes to the health being of mothers — it helps to space children and reduces the risk of ovarian cancer and breast cancer. Studies show that women who breastfed their infants had up to a 12% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes for each year they breastfed, decreased the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 21%, decreased the risk of breast cancer by up to 28% in those whose lifetime duration of breastfeeding was 12 months or longer.
The Union health ministry says children should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and should not be given anything else, even water.
Colostrum, the human breast milk is very rich in proteins, vitamin A and sodium chloride, but contains lower amounts of carbohydrates, potassium, and fat (as human newborns may find fat difficult to digest), than normal milk.
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