A Case for Breastfeeding

The Observer (Kampala)

Diana Nabiruma

18 May 2011

opinion

Dr Pius Okong, a senior consultant gynaecologist at St. Raphael of St. Francis Nsambya Hospital, is unhappy that mothers in Uganda, especially the educated type, do not breastfeed their babies for a minimum of two years.

“We are repeating the mistakes the whites made long ago,” he says.

“They are now correcting their mistakes but we with our copycat behaviour are taking on what they have discarded.”

According to Okong, working mothers in European countries are encouraged to breastfeed their babies by building them daycare centres at work. When a baby gets hungry, the mother goes to the office daycare centre to breastfeed it.

“Those people have realized the importance of breastfeeding and are seriously doing it but look at us here; you cannot tell an educated woman to breastfeed a baby until it is two years. Even when that woman can, she will not do it,” Okong says.

Why breastfeed

It is good for both the health of the child and the mother. It discourages growth of fibroids and reduces the chances of a woman getting breast cancer. That aside, it is good for the child because it helps build the child’s immunity.

Dr Okong notes that today, there is an increase in the number of children who suffer from various allergies because they were not breastfed. If you have noticed, children from the village rarely suffer from allergies and this is partly because they are breastfed until they are two.

Rural mothers move with their children to the gardens and they breastfeed on demand, a good habit because it creates a bond between mother and child.

The World Health Organisation’s recommendation is that babies are breastfed exclusively for the first six months, while Muniirah Mbabazi, a nutritionist, advises that mothers breastfeed their babies within the first 30 minutes of giving birth because that first milk is good for the babies’ immunity.

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