Every year, for the World Breastfeeding Week, a little review of the situation is done, to see if breastfeeding information and normalization strategies have an impact on the figures, even though family policies do not just evolve so that WHO recommendations are possible.
I speak of that recommendation that says that the ideal for the nutrition and health of babies is that they are breastfed on demand and exclusively during the first six months of life. Do most children do it? Not at all. Not even one in three babies does. Therefore breastfeeding rates in Spain have yet to improve a lot.
Still far from complying with the recommendations
According to El Diario, and with data from the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP), the percentage of women who breastfeed their babies at six weeks of age is 72%. At three months of life of babies, the percentage is 66%, and at six months of life, 47%.
It seems a negligible figure, but we must bear in mind that it is not even halfway through, and that these figures are from babies who receive breast milk, but not from exclusively breastfed babies. If we focus on this criterion, which is that of the official recommendation of the highest international organizations in terms of health, the percentage of breastfed babies up to 6 months, exclusively, is only 28.5%.
Is it the fault of the professionals?
Health professionals do a great job in promoting breastfeeding, informing of the benefits that a woman breastfeeds her baby over offering formula milk, not only for her child, but also for her .
Taking into account that in the previous generation the norm was to bottle feed, and that in Spain it is also from 4-6 months, it is still necessary to provide women with reliable and truthful information, without prejudice, to do what that they think is more convenient (because, obviously, the final decision is made by each woman).
Now, in the same way that professionals are able to say that "breastfeeding is the best", because it has defenses, adapts to the growth of the baby, there is no possible comparison at the nutritional level, reduces the risk of cancer in the mother and a long etcetera, there are very few that are able to help women who have decided to breastfeed, but they have problems.
Given that breastfeeding is something that is learned and taught, and that today's grandmothers barely breastfed, and cannot teach it, women do not have at home who can help them with their doubts or problems.
Then they depend on expert theorists, health professionals, and here they encounter an important problem. Midwives are quite overwhelmed with work (or put another way: many midwives are missing in Spain), and yet many do not have enough knowledge, family nurses rarely know about breastfeeding, not to mention the GPs. Then pediatricians remain, as babies' doctors, and with exceptions, many are little able to lend a hand to mothers. And the nursing staff, more or less the same.
There are many at a point where they are formed on their own initiative, or speak according to what they have learned over time, giving old solutions, often counterproductive, and transmitting myths long since banished, which can even be obtained as a result. The end of breastfeeding.
Come on, thankfully, many mothers have discovered breastfeeding support groups and the role of the IBCLC (or they go to health professionals who know they can help them), because if not, the figures would be even lower.
Is it the fault of maternity leave?
On the other hand, it makes no sense that WHO, UNICEF, the AEP and even the Ministry of Health recommend exclusively breastfeeding babies for six months, and offering women a maternity leave of only 16 weeks.
Yes, there are countries that are worse, but there are countries that are much better, and in the end it does not matter. At 16 weeks the baby has yet to be breastfed on demand and exclusively and mom is no longer to do it, so the equation is hopelessly complicated.
The mother has to start pumping for when she is gone; or you have to decide not to do it because at work you will not have time for it, and you must reduce shots so that your breasts do not "explode" by producing a milk that your baby will not be able to breastfeed, nor will she extract; or maybe start with complementary feeding before recommended because the baby does not want the bottle; or I can't give you a bottle because there is an allergy; or…
Yes, there are women who return to their paid work and achieve exclusive breastfeeding until six months, but there are many who do not succeed, or who see it so complicated, that they do not even try.
So if we want our babies, our children, the future of our country, to grow with the best level of health possible, society will have to change in various aspects. On the one hand, informing about breastfeeding, helping to normalize it (because in fact, it is normal, although it often does not seem so), and training health professionals so that they can help all those women who want to breastfeed and cannot. And on the other, modifying social policies to protect the baby, its feeding and its development for longer, with longer permits.
And women who decide not to breastfeed?
Women who do not breastfeed because they prefer to bottle feed they are very free to do it, so I mention them because I know that they are in the head of many, but it is not on them that the fault of the low breastfeeding rates should fall: first because it is an individual and totally respectable decision, and second because, even if they decided to breastfeed , the rates would remain low.
The problem is that there are many who wanted to breastfeed longer and could not because nobody knew or could help, and on this problem must go strategies and energies.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | Breastfeeding could save the lives of more than 800,000 children and 20,000 women a year, Breastfeeding in Mexico: much remains to be done, The AEP publishes a report in favor of breastfeeding in older children (yes, those who are already walking and run)
