World Breastfeeding Week 2008 - World Breastfeeding Awareness Month

Initiation of breastfeeding within the 1st hour of birth is the first and most vital step towards reducing infant and under-five mortality, by reducing the overwhelmingly high neonatal mortality rate. Save ONE million babies – beginning with ONE action, ONE hour support and ONE message: begin breastfeeding within ONE hour of birth!

Rationale:
 It has long been long known about the benefits of colostrum
 New scientific evidence reveals that if all women begin breastfeeding within ONE hour it could prevent ONE million newborn deaths
 Few countries have such data available
 We know some of the reasons why women delay breastfeeding
 Community workers can play a major role to make it happen
 We want to reach every family with the message and that we can do it together.

Objectives
1. To draw the world’s attention to save ONE million babies beginning with just ONE action, just ONE hour of support and with just ONE message
2. To encourage establishing breastfeeding within the 1st hour as a key indicator of health progress by all communities, locally and globally.

Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG-4) aims at reducing under-five child mortality by two thirds by 2015. According to global data, out of all 10.9 million under-five deaths, roughly 4 million babies die during the first month of life. This means that deaths will have to be brought down appreciably within the first month to make a significant dent on the child mortality rates. The Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding, Innocenti Declaration on Infant and Young Child Feeding 2005, and World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions all support this action.

A recent study has shown that if ALL women began breastfeeding within the 1st hour it would save ONE million of the 4 million newborn deaths. This study from rural Ghana, based on 10,947 breastfed singleton infants, has shown that initiation of breastfeeding within the 1st hour of birth reduced the infants’ risk of death . On the other hand, there was a marked increase in risk with increasing delay in initiation. Overall late initiation (after day ONE) was associated with a 2.4-fold increase in risk. Giving pre-lacteal feeds, i.e. something other than mother’s milk before beginning to breastfeed also increased the risk of neonatal mortality. The study conducted on babies who survived day ONE, clearly showed that 41% of all babies who die during 2 to 28 days of life can be saved by this simple intervention: beginning breastfeeding within ONE hour of birth. When the deaths of day ONE were included, it showed 22% of all neonatal (0-28 days) deaths could be reduced. In India, for example, this means 250,000 neonates can be saved from death annually by just this ONE act. Initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour of birth is thus the first and most vital step towards reducing infant and under-five mortality.

Where countries stand on beginning breastfeeding within the 1st hour?
Coverage of interventions to improve early infant feeding practices such as early initiation of breastfeeding (within ONE hour or ONE day) is sub-optimal. Studied data on initiation is available in only 38 countries.

How can you help women to begin breastfeeding within the 1st hour?
How much support women get from the health sector and family determines this outcome. Women need minimum essential support like e.g. assistance at time of birth to initiate the process of breastfeeding, help and a policy to keep the baby and mother together after delivery, avoidance of giving pre-lacteal feeds and artificial nipple/teats.

Benefits to both women and babies
Timely initiation of breastfeeding is beneficial for both the baby and the mother because:
 Colostrum provides the baby with nourishment (the baby needs very little at this time – a few drops are enough) and thus its first immunisation
 It helps the production of milk enough for the next feed
 It makes use of the baby’s sucking reflex (which is strongest during the 1st hour) to establish proper latching
 It helps prevent blood loss in the women
 It provides the skin-to-skin contact and warmth that babies need most, particularly premature and low birth weight babies
 It is more beneficial for low weight babies because they are more likely to die, and they need more support at birth to be able to suck well.

What can you do?
 Find out if your country/state/district/province/community has such data
 Find out from your community why incorrect practices are followed, what are the solutions to this, and document them
 Write to your governments to commit resources for action to educate all health care providers, midwives and nurses to convey the message to women and families
 Brief local media persons on the new finding and prepare for WBW 2007
 Call upon each man, doctor, nurse, midwife and youth to support at least ONE mother for ONE week
 Send to us by 1st March, what percentage of women begin breastfeeding within the 1st hour of birth in your country (Mention the study, its population scope and year of study to waba@streamyx.com).

The mission of the California Department of Health Services is to protect and improve the health of all Californians.