Joyce Namugambe
Uganda has joined the rest of the world to commemorate the world breastfeeding day, which is aimed at sensitizing the public about the benefits of breastfeeding to both the mother and the baby for the good of their health.
According to the survey conducted by the ministry of health, breastfeeding in mothers is now at 63% yet it was at 66 % in 2016 when the survey was conducted, and breastfeeding at the first hour at birth is only 78% yet it is so essential for a baby and this is worrying.
According to the Nutrition Assistant commissioner in the ministry of Health Samalie Namukose, the key issues that lead to the increasing rate of mothers not breastfeeding base on the lack of access to skilled breastfeeding support in mothers, lack of knowledge about breastfeeding, among others, which has led to increased malnutrition among babies and other related complications.
UNICEF representative to Uganda Munir A Safieldin has shown concern over the fact that, breastfeeding regulations are only applied in the formal sector but not in the informal sector, thereby leaving out mothers in the private sectors and other sectors. And he arged government to regulate baby feeding supplements so that mothers are encouraged to breast feed.
He arged the government to make it a system that all breast feeding mothers are given chance to breastfeed their babies to promote exclusive breastfeeding, through promoting breastfeeding friendly facilities in the hospitals and around the country as a way of promoting exclusive breastfeeding.
Representing the ministry of health, Doctor Daniel Kyabayize challenged men not only to look at women during maternity leave for the sake of breastfeeding but it is a collective responsibility for them to support women to go through the whole process safely.
While launching the world breast feeding week on behalf of the Speaker of parliament at Imperial Royal hotel in Kampala, the chairman for parliamentary committee on health and MP for koboko municipality Doctor Charles Ayum, has challenged employers to create a favorable working environment to breastfeeding mothers, through providing facilities that will help them breastfeed their babies during working hours and also safely keep them up to 3 years.
He added that government has plans to extend the maternity leave from 90 days to 6 months paid leave to mothers to enable them engage in exclusive breast feeding for their babies, to avoid the negative effects of missing the breast feeding period to both mothers and babies.
He challenged women who think breastfeeding affect their body shapes, which is one of the reasons women especially young mothers don’t want to breastfeed saying, breastfeeding is very key towards shaping a woman’s body in order after delivery.
The world breastfeeding week celebrations will take place on 08th August 2023 in Kakumiro district and it has been spear headed by different organizations including Alliance on Food and Nutrition security, USAID, UNICEF, World vision, Food for hungry, NSSF, Parliamentarians, UNBS among others.
The theme for this year’s World breastfeeding week is Enabling Breast feeding, making a difference to working mothers.
