At one day workshop…
THE Ministry of Health yesterday hosted a one day sensitisation workshop on its BFHI ‘Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative’.
The target group was health workers of Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and portfolio Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, said baby friendly hospitals will be part of the primary health care system.
He explained that this is one of the many activities organised in observance of National Breastfeeding Week 2010, September 12 to 18, under the theme ‘Breastfeeding: Just 10 Steps the Baby Friendly Way’.
Ramsammy said there are only three baby friendly hospitals in Guyana, West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) in Region Three (West Demerara/Essequibo Islands); Suddie Public Hospital in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) and Wismar Hospital in Region 10 (Upper Demerara/Berbice).
He expressed the hope that, by 2011, Guyana’s main health care institution, GPHC will boast the baby friendly status.
BFHI, introduced in 1991, is an undertaking by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organisation to ensure that all maternities, whether free standing or in a hospital, become centres of breastfeeding support.
According to UNICEF, since the inception of BFHI, more than 15,000 facilities in 134 countries have been awarded baby friendly status.

A maternity facility can be designated baby friendly when it does not accept free or low cost breast milk substitutes, feeding bottles or teats and has implemented 10 specific steps to support successful breastfeeding.

STEPS

Those steps are that they:

* have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff;

* train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy;

* inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding;

* help mothers initiate breastfeeding within half an hour of birth;

* show mothers how to breastfeed and maintain lactation, even if they should be separated from their infants;

* give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically mandated;

* practice rooming, allowing mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day;

* encourage breastfeeding on demand;

* give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants and

* foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from a hospital or clinic.

Ramsammy contended that the weakness with most global initiatives is that, once the certification is gained, it is kept.

MONITORING

However, he said the Ministry of Health will be doing some level of monitoring, so that health care facilities have to continue working to maintain their certification or it will be taken away.
To make this work, Ramsammy emphasized that each staff member of GPHC, more particularly each health worker, has to be familiar with the 10 necessary steps that need to be followed to support successful breastfeeding.
“Only about 43 per cent of newborns are breastfed, but almost instantaneously they are taken off the breast,” he observed.
Ramsammy said the global average is 35 per cent, so Guyana is still doing well but  more needs to be done to achieve the 100 per cent targeted.
He said abandoning the practice of breastfeeding is wrong and depriving a child of breast milk is to deprive him or her of a fundamental basic human right.
“Breastfeeding cannot hurt babies. Children who are breastfed are immunologically stronger. They are resistant to diseases like diarrhoea and so on,” Ramsammy maintained.
According to him, children brought up on breast milk are healthier adults and less vulnerable to certain diseases as that feed is more or less the perfect food for babies.
“One-third of the children worldwide who die are dead because of some form of malnutrition. Awareness is what is lacking,” he posited.
Ramsammy challenged health workers to step up efforts to make the public aware of the facts.
National Breastfeeding Coordinator, Mrs. Lillian Blair pointed out that BFHI has benefits not only for babies and their mothers but also for the health care institution, itself.
In that context, she reiterated the importance of the 10 steps approach and noted that those best practices will advance Guyana’s recognition in boasting quality maternity and child health care.
Senior Departmental Supervisor, Maternity Unit, Mrs. Marjorie Arjune gave her assurance that, with the input and support, GPHC will soon be a baby friendly hospital.
She said the objective is not about a plaque, rather about ensuring that Guyana has a healthy population which starts from birth with breastfeeding.