Breast feeding month starts today
By Don Asoka Wijewardena
Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena stressed that every infant one hour after birth should be given mother’s milk. It was extremely important to breast feed every infant to prevent the infants from contracting various diseases.
The National Breast Feeding Month would commence today. During this month several awareness programmes on importance of breast feeding would be conducted country-wide by Provincial Health Directors, Minister Sirisena told the media recently.
Minister Sirisena outlined that breast feeding one-hours after birth would bring many health benefits to infants’ later life. Infants who are breast fed were immune to various diseases and their intelligence would be developed to a great extent.
He pointed out that many commercial advertisements were trying to take people for a ride because they were persuading people to buy various brands of powdered milk. They were assuring steady growth, nutrition, high intelligence and balanced mentality of child. But all these advertisements were unscientific. Medical experts had recommended mother’s milk as the best food an infant could have.
Sri Lanka was capable of breast feeding 85 per cent of the infants and it was the highest in the region. The country-wide awareness programmes on breast feeding would disseminate knowledge on the importance of breast feeding to all mothers, the Minister noted.
SL has highest percentage of breast feeding mothers in SA
By Dilanthi Jayamanne
Over 85 percent of Sri Lankan women breast feed their babies during the first month after birth. Quoting the Additional Secretary of the Health Ministry, Dr. Palitha Mahipala the spokesman said on Thursday that Sri Lanka had reached the highest percentage of breast feeding mothers in South Asia.
South Asia has the highest percentage of breast feeding mothers, he said. The Family Health Bureau (FHB) in collaboration with the Health Ministry has organised a National Breast Feeding Week from August 1 to 7. The theme for the week would be ‘Let’s talk more about breast feeding.’
The Spokesman said the FHB targeted several categories to create awareness on the importance of breast feeding. Not only mothers but care takers, opinion leaders, young leaders, husbands, elderly mothers, and management categories of private institutions should be made aware of the necessity of breast milk for babies.
Although only a week has been allocated to signify the importance by the Health Ministry, the FHB would conduct programmes throughout next month. The FHB and the Ministry are keen to increase the percentage of breast feeding mothers to hundred percent. It prevents infants from falling victims to diseases such as diabetes, heart ailments and other health problems. The mother’s health too improves if she breast feeds her child.
He said the programme had been conducted at the Castle Street Hospital for Women with over 200 pregnant mothers and mothers who have already given birth.
The Deputy Health Minister said that the government had implemented laws to ensure that mothers were given the opportunity to breast feed their babies after their birth. The public sector provides working mothers three months paid leave, and an additional three months leave on half pay. If they want to stay longer to ensure that their babies receive adequate nurturing they are given three more months no-pay leave. In addition they are allowed to leave their work places one hour earlier once they report for duty to breast feed their babies.
Fathers serving in the public sector too are able to apply for one month leave to help their wives once the baby is born, he said.
The government has requested the private sector as well to allow a new mother to leave the work place an hour earlier than the stipulated time. However it has not been fully implemented by all private sector organisations, he added.
Source:
The Health Ministry said yesterday that dengue fever was rapidly spreading throughout the country and urged the public to keep their premises free from dengue mosquito breeding sites. A Health Ministry spokesman said destroying dengue mosquito breeding sites is the most effective way of preventing dengue.
ශ්රී ලංකාවේ දිළිඳුකම සියයට 7.5 දක්වා පහත වැටී ඇතැයි රජය සඳහන් කරයි. පසුගිය 2000 වර්ෂයේ සිට මේ දක්වා කාලයේ මෙවැනි අගයක් කරා ගමන් කිරීමට රජයට හැකි වී තිබෙන බවත් 2000 වර්ෂයේදී ශ්රී ලංකාවේ දිළිඳුකම සියයට 24 ක අගයක් ගත් බවත් දැන් එම අගය 7.5 ක් වන බවත් ආර්ථික සංවර්ධන නියෝජ්ය ඇමැති ලක්ෂ්මන් යාපා අබේවර්ධන මහතා සඳහන් කරයි.