Chinny Obinwanne, Lactation consultant, Founder, Milk booster, and MilkBank, Nigeria, has explained that breast milk reduces the risk of so many illnesses and diseases in a newborn; from respiratory issues like pneumonia to gastrointestinal issues like vomiting and diarrhea, including reducing the risk of allergy, eczema, asthma, and atopic dermatitis.
She said it keeps babies alive by lowering the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) in premature babies, stating that getting breast milk provides a lot of immediate and long-term benefits that follow the baby as they grow to become toddlers, teenagers, and a grown adult.
To mark 2023 World Breastfeeding Week, Obinwanne also enunciated the importance of breastfeeding to the overall health and wellness of both baby and mother.
“For a newborn; the first milk (colostrum) which is loaded with antibodies coats the lining of the gut preventing the passage of bacteria and viruses into the body system of the baby. Breast milk provides the perfect nutrition that contains everything a baby needs for the first 6 months of life, Obinwanne-Eziwike said.”
In line with the theme of this year’s World Breastfeeding Week, ‘Enabling breastfeeding: making a difference for working parents, Dr. Obinwanne noted that Breastfeeding helps a mother lose weight as it takes a huge amount of calories to manufacture breast milk. The more breast milk a mother’s body produces, the more calories it will consume from her body fat storage to make it. As long as the mother is eating the right nutrient-dense meals, she will notice weight loss.
“In a situation where some nursing mothers are not able to produce enough milk for their babies, rather than them supplementing their breast milk with formula, they can do that with pasteurised donor human milk. According to WHO, pasteurised donor human milk is the best option when babies do not have access to their mother’s own milk,” Obinwanne adds.
Speaking on the challenges of running a milk bank in Nigeria, she noted that lack of funding plays a huge role. “Without any external funding, The Milk Booster has been funding the cost implication of running the Milk Bank from paying the staff; blood screening of each donor mum; the numerous pre-pasteurisation and post-pasteurisation milk screening and running the facility It’s been a lot. I remember the number of times we had a post-pasteurisation milk sample test come back and not clear, we kept going back and forth with the team in South Africa that helped us so much to get past that hurdle.
She added that awareness is another challenge. “We have gotten 20 recipient requests for human milk, after we engage them and do the paperwork, the majority of them don’t proceed to the final steps of receiving the milk. The Milk Bank is hoping to fill the gap of awareness and knowledge by partnering with bodies and organisations that represent different arms of healthcare practice that are in line with what we are doing to increase awareness of the need for milk banks in our community.
Dr. Obinwanne also advocates continuous desensitisation of the public with online and offline education, while encouraging new mums going back to work to start preparing early from the first two weeks after delivery on how to breastfeed and store the milk for the baby.
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“I tell new mums to start pumping early by adding an extra pump session every day to their baby’s feeding demand and start storing the milk they express during that extra pump session. They should store it in their freezer which can last for six months minimum. With this extra pump session, many mums already have a milk stash by the time they are heading back to work in three months.
“Then I get them to have a difficult conversation with their HR to discuss break times and pumping breaks. At this point, the response varies amongst mums and the organisation they work for and I tailor the plan according to what is feasible per mum.
“Some mums have had to break their lunch break into three parts to enable them to pump three times at work. Others have appreciated our low-sound wearable breast pump, which they can have inserted into their bra and pump while working and nobody notices they are pumping.
Then we consistently help them maximise their efforts with our lactation treats so that they produce more volume of breast milk. We also introduced a thermal sensor breast milk storage bag and cooler bag to enable them to store their pumped milk safely for their babies,” she added.
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