Cape Town - This World Breastfeeding Week, health experts are advocating for exclusive breastfeeding. World Breastfeeding Week is commemorated from August 1 to 7.
The City’s health department will appoint 35 people to be trained for the infant feeding counsellors project through the Expanded Public Works programme. The counsellors will educate pregnant women and postnatal mothers on safe infant feeding practices, and will provide support, especially to first-time mothers, the City said.
Community Services and Health Mayco member Patricia van der Ross said: “Breastfeeding does more than just provide for a baby’s nutritional needs during the first few months of life; it protects against allergies, sickness, obesity and disease.”
The project will launch at the end of the month, with the 35 counsellors serving 39 clinics across the city. Only 50% of mothers who visit City clinics breastfeed exclusively.
“City health continues to look at ways to improve the breastfeeding rate, and the project is one of the interventions that will help us reach the national target of 55%.
“Breastfeeding also benefits moms, as it lowers the risk of a number of diseases, including breast and ovarian cancer,” Van der Ross said.
Dr Chantell Witten, researcher at the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Food Security at the University of the Western Cape, said: “While we celebrate World Breastfeeding Week, we have to be vigilant about the unethical marketing of formula. Mothers are constantly confronted with falsehoods that formula is as good as breastfeeding. It is not.”