EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING: HEALTH SERVICE ADVOCATING FOR ORGANISATIONAL MOTHER CARE CENTERS

Creating an enabling environment for lactating mothers within an organization is a major concern for nursing mothers.

To help promote exclusive breastfeeding, the Ghana Health Service is advocating for mother care centers within every organization to allow Lactating mothers to breastfeed optimally. Exclusive breastfeeding is very essential for newborns to achieve optimal growth, development and health.

reports indicate that babies who are not breast fed for the first six months of life are 15 times more likely to die from Pneumonia compared to newborns that are breast fed exclusively for six months after.

However, survey shows both exclusive and continued breastfeeding rates have stagnated in recent past. With only 52 percent of Ghanaian children being exclusively breastfed with wide disparities indicates that close to half of all children born in Ghana are being deprived.

This according to the director general of the Ghana Health service Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare is due to lack of an enabling environment especially within organizations for lactating mothers.

Again he said advocacy and orientation session with stakeholders will include a review and extension of the ILO maternity protection regulation which is currently 12 weeks to support women at workplaces including the informal sector. Matron at the reproductive and child health unit of the Ridge hospital Scholastica Derry lamented poor and sub-optimal breastfeeding practices put babies at high risk of compromises health and malnutrition. Judith Duodu a working mother was not happy about lack of provision of care centers for breastfeeding mothers at the work environment.