Ten steps to successful breastfeeding |31 July 2010

The Ministry of Health will use World Breastfeeding Week from August 1-7 to increase support for women wanting to breastfeed, and to promote the health factors that make the practice so valuable.

The aim is also to help Seychelles reach its target of designation under the baby-friendly hospital initiative (BFHI) of the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund by August 2011.

This year’s World Breastfeeding Week theme is Breastfeeding: just 10 steps! The baby-friendly way. Its aims are:
• To raise awareness of the contribution of the 10 steps to exclusive breastfeeding;

• To revitalise activities within health systems, and among healthcare providers and communities, to help women achieve their breastfeeding intentions;

• To inform people everywhere that protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding is a mother’s right, a child’s right and a human right;

• To enable women and all who care about human rights to fight for healthcare systems that support breastfeeding;
• To ensure that health workers who care for mothers and babies are adequately trained to counsel and support them in the best way of feeding infants.

This year, World Breastfeeding Week also commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Innocenti Declaration, which called for the 10 steps to be taken in all maternity facilities.

The BFHI covers these 10 steps aimed at promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding globally. After coming into effect in 1990, the BFHI protocol now covers over 152 countries that are baby-friendly, with more than 20,000 maternity services worldwide having reached this status.

The ministry aims to reach its BFHI target through continuing efforts to improve and reinforce exclusive breastfeeding and increase support for mothers.

There will be a range of activities during the week, including several at district level, ending with a ceremony in the Red Roof building of Victoria hospital on Friday August 6 from 10.30am to 12 noon.
The ceremony will include:

• The launch of a telephone helpline to give support to nursing mothers;
• Newly developed material giving information on breastfeeding will be displayed to promote breastfeeding as the best choice for babies;

• Lay supporters trained during the week as ambassadors empowering women to breastfeed will be awarded certificates;
• Gillian Mein, head of the maternity unit at Victoria hospital, will present the breastfeeding evaluation which has been going on for the last three years to assess Seychelles’ breastfeeding status;

• Stephanie Adrienne, nutritionist, will present the community nutrition surveillance project, which assesses the continued breastfeeding rate until the baby is two years old.

Among other activities there will be a one-day training session for breastfeeding lay supporters on Monday August 2 and  a TV programme on breastfeeding and nutrition to be screened after World Breastfeeding Week.

At district health centre level there will be: at English River, an exhibition on August 2; at Mont Fleuri, a talk to daycare assistants on August 3 and a health education session with health centre staff on August 6; at Anse Aux Pins, an exhibition on August 12; at Anse Royale, a workshop on breastfeeding, with testimony from three mothers, on August 6; at Takamaka, a morning talk throughout the week and a peer presentation on the 10 steps to successful breastfeeding; at Baie Lazare, a health talk for pregnant/newly delivered women; and at the Logan Hospital, La Digue, a health talk.