BREASTFEEDING
Health professionals always considered breastfeeding as the gold standard for infant feeding. It offers multitude of benefits, thus making it far more superior to infant formula. It is safe for the baby to ingest due to its lack of unwanted or artificial ingredients. The act of breastfeeding is the first link or communication pathway between the infant and the mother. Studies in the past have also confirmed the link between Breastfeeding and better health of the infant. It strengthens and boosts the immune system of the baby due to the presence of so many essential nutrients and antibodies in the milk. Breastfeeding has advantages for the mothers as well, despite that the baby is the only one ingesting the milk. It actually
…show more content…
The Tama, Sapat, at Eksklusibo (TSEK) program, launched by the Department of Health stresses the following practices: 1) there is immediate skin to skin contact of the mother and baby right after birth; 2) early breastfeeding initiation within the first hour of life; 3) sapat- assurance that a little amount of breast milk is enough for the first feeding; 4) frequent breastfeeding to supply the needs of the child; 5) eksklusibo- breast milk should be the only liquid given for the first six months (Department of Health, …show more content…
The figures have grown from 35 percent in 2000 to 49 percent in 2010 (Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2013).
The Department of Health and Human Services in the USA established The Healthy People objectives for 2020 (HP 2020), a set of national goals to be accomplished. Among these objectives is to increase the number of breastfeeding babies by 2020 to be 81.9 % for children who ever breastfed, 60.6% for children who breastfed for 6 months, 34.1% for children who breastfed for 12 months, 46.2% for children who exclusively breastfed for 3 months, and 25.5% for children who exclusively breastfed for 6 months (United States Breastfeeding Committee, 2013).
Despite these measures of the government, national breastfeeding rates in the United States fall short of the Healthy People 2020 (HP 2020) goals for increasing the proportion of infants who are breastfed (USDHHS, 2010). In 2009, only 76.9% of infants were breastfed at some point during their first year of life, 36% were breastfed exclusively three months, and 16.3 % were breastfed exclusively six months. These babies are not getting the full extent of the breastfeeding period due to the early termination of the breastfeeding (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, [CDC,],