A Professor of Child Health and Consultant Neonatologist, University of Benin/University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UNIBEN/UBTH), Charles Eregie, has once more asserted that there are no substitutes to breast milk.
Enumerating on this to participants and health personnel at the world breastfeeding week symposium, with theme, “Breastfeeding: Foundation of life” organized by the Institute of Child Health (ICH), UNIBEN/UBTH, in collaboration with Department of International and Global Studies, Mercer University, USA, Professor Eregie observed that it was a technical misnomer to refer to some entities as breast milk substitutes, as alternative food, for feeding babies.
He stated that even in scenarios where breastfeeding was challenged for instance, due to the demise of a mother at birth, effort should be made to seek out an already breastfeeding relative, who could volunteer to feed both her baby and the other baby placed in her care, at the same time through “tandem breastfeeding.”
Another intervention process is allowing a baby suckle on the bosom of a female who has already stopped breastfeeding, to stimulate milk flow through “re-lactation,” which is the stimulating of breastfeeding process all over again or through the “non-pueperal lactation” process (24-36 hours) after birth, through the use of, preferably, a maternal grandmother, who is induced into the production of quality milk despite not going through the “Puerperal” stage in which a pregnant mother naturally gets simulated into milk production during six weeks of birth due to the presence of a human placenta producing Lactogen which produces the first brownish milk called colostrum at birth.
Professor Eregie talked about the idea of having a human milk bank on standby as obtainable in advanced climes to fill an observed vacuum during a time of crises. He moreover opined that it was only when these intervention processes are unavailable that the need for intra-human produced milk from goats and cows should be administered on human babies.
Eregie stated that breastfeeding is the foundation of life. He based his summation of the FOAD Hypothesis (Fatal origin of adult disease) which is premised on the fact that environmental factors particularly nutrition, act in early life to program risks for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in adult life.
He surmised that the little baby breastfed benefits from the growth spot during the first six months of life, coupled with the child’s survival that protects the baby from diseases, disorders and help nourish good nutrition.
He stated also that, if such a baby optimized the second growth spot, which is before adolescence, as a female, it leads to a well formed motherhood, with the development of the right phenotype (body structure) so that, when she becomes pregnant/become a mother, she would be able to form her baby better in the womb (developmental plasticity body programming) so that when born, such a baby has a body composition that can protect it against many adult diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity as well as the protection against infections, which could have hindered the optimal growth and development of the baby at the beginning of life.
He stated that the first one thousand days of life- “period of pregnancy and next two years of life,” were important for the formation and future trajectory in the growth and development of the child.
Aside children, Prof. Eregie said mothers also benefit from the process, as suckling a baby just an hour after birth kick starts the stimulation of hormones (Oxytocin) for the quick contraction of uterus which prevents “post partum hemorrhage” (bleeding) and “involution” (return of uterus to normal size after birth).
The stimulation of the breast during breastfeeding he put forward, led to the release of oestrogen, which helped at preventing breast and ovarian cancers and even prevent osteoporosis which disintegrates the female skeletal frame.
Eregie noted that optimal breastfeeding – 0-6months(baby friendly) and continued breastfeeding, up to eighteen months, (2yrs), helped females keep their hormones in check, allowing for a natural birth control process, as females only get pregnant after they wean (stop breastfeeding) their child which aid maternal longevity and health.
Prof. Osawaru Oviawe, on his own part, stressed on maintaining the complete immunization doses for babies in addition to optimal breastfeeding up to six months, to build malaria antibodies as well as drive down asthma and eczema allergic reactions associated with milk substitutes.
A nursing mother, Mrs. Onoshaze Omorunyi while enumerating on the benefits also talked about challenges of breastfeeding.
