Breastfeeding
Archived articles from this Category
Breastfeeding halves rheumatoid arthritis risk
LONDON (Reuters) - Women who breastfeed their babies longer are less likely to get rheumatoid arthritis, Swedish researchers said on Tuesday.
Mothers who breastfed for 13 months or more were half as likely to get the painful joint condition as women who never breastfed, said Mitra Pikwer and colleagues at the Malmo University Hospital in Sweden, who led the study.
“Although it is difficult to separate the effect of breast feeding from that of childbirth, our data suggest that rheumatoid arthritis is inversely associated with long-term breastfeeding, rather than with the number of children born,” they said.
Posted by ibfanafrica on 14 May 2008 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding Pictures
Beautiful african mothers are in some of the 12 winning pictures from the WABA contest, for the 2008 World Breastfeeding Week.
Click here to see all of them.
Photo: JOSEPHINE NALUGO, Support for proper attachment is key (WABA)
Posted by ibfanafrica on 14 May 2008 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, World Breastfeeding Week
Breastfeeding: Practice and Policy Certificate Course
The annual London Summer Course, “Breastfeeding: Practice and Policy Certificate Course” is being held from the 9th to 27th June 2008.
The revised three-week masters-level certificate course provides an up-to-date scientific, technical and practical training. It covers all aspects of breastfeeding, from birth to two years and beyond, including policy and programme implementation.
More information can be found at: www.waba.org.my
Posted by ibfanafrica on 14 May 2008 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, Events
Anti-AIDS measure backfires in Africa
Anti-breast-feeding measure backfires in Botswana, causing more despair
By Craig Timberg/The Washington Post
NKANGE, Botswana - Doctors noticed two troubling things about the limp, sunken-eyed children who flooded pediatric wards across Botswana during the rainy season in early 2006: They were dying from diarrhea, a malady that is rarely fatal here. And few of their mothers were breast-feeding, a practice once all but universal.
After the outbreak was over and at least 532 children had died — 20 times the usual toll for diarrhea — a team of U.S. investigators solved the terrible riddle.
A decade-long, global push to provide infant formula to mothers with the AIDS virus had backfired in Botswana, leaving children more vulnerable to other, more immediately lethal diseases, the U.S. team found after investigating the outbreak at the request of Botswana´s government.
Benefits of milk outweigh risks
The findings joined a growing body of research suggesting that supplying formula to mothers with HIV — an effort led by global health groups such as UNICEF — has cost at least as many lives as it has saved. The nutrition and antibodies that breast milk provide are so crucial to young children that they outweigh the small risk of transmitting HIV, which researchers calculate at about 1 percent per month of breast-feeding.
“Everyone who has tried formula feeding . . . found that those who formula feed for the first six months really have problems,” Hoosen Coovadia, a University of KwaZulu-Natal pediatrician and author of a recent study on formula feeding, said from Durban , South Africa . “They get diarrhea. They get pneumonia. They get malnutrition. And they die.”
Posted by ibfanafrica on 14 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Botswana, Breastfeeding, HIV
How to Extend Breastfeeding
By Susie McGee
Breastfeeding offers many benefits for both mother and child. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that nursing mothers continue to breastfeed their babies for at least the first year. The benefits of breastfeeding for babies includes a lower risk of allergies, diabetes and other health-related problems.
Posted by Vulie Kunene on 12 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, Community Support, General, Maternal Protection
How to overcome challenges to breastfeeding
How To Resolve Breastfeeding Problems
By Theresa Halvorsen
It is recommended that women breastfeed their babies for at least six months, and preferably a year. Yet many women don’t even come close to six months due to breastfeeding issues. Breastfeeding issues run the gamut from nipple soreness to mastitis and thrush, but there are steps you can take to resolve breastfeeding issues.
Continue Reading »
Posted by Vulie Kunene on 12 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, Community Support, General, IBFAN Activities
Donation from Wellcome Trust Boosts HIV Research In Sub-Saharan Africa
The Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies, based in an area of South Africa where over one in five people are HIV infected, is to receive approximately 15 million pounds over five years, subject to a three year review, from the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest medical research charity. The Centre will use the funding to improve the health status of people in the area, with a particular focus on HIV infection.
Posted by Vulie Kunene on 11 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, General, HIV, South Africa
To: The People and Leaders of the United States of America
Help us save 16,000 Filipino children lives every year and 1.5 million babies dying every year throughout the world, because they were not breastfed.
To counter the mounting pressure that US officials and businessmen exert against breastfeeding advocates and Philippine health officials to prevent them from strictly implementing the laws that protect breastfeeding, the initiator of this petition-signing organized two simultaneous breastfeeding Guinness World Records in single and multiple sites in the Philippines, synchronized breastfeeding worldwide and initiated Senate and Congress hearings in her country. The battle has reached the Supreme Court and the case is still being adjudicated. The case constitutes a precedent that may affect the Breastfeeding Movement in the entire world, especially in developing countries where the financial muscle of multinational corporations and official American pressure are influencing national policies.
Posted by Vulie Kunene on 05 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, General, Watch the Code
The Quiet Scandal of 10 Million Deaths
By Alexandra Stahl UNITED NATIONS, Oct 2 (IPS) - A global coalition of governments and organisations has launched a new campaign to drastically improve pre- and post-natal healthcare in places like India, which alone accounts for a staggering 25 percent of the world’s child deaths and 20 percent of maternal deaths. Continue Reading »
Posted by Vulie Kunene on 03 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, Community Support, General
Child Mortality on the decrease: A reason to be cheerful!
Child mortality worldwide hits record low: UNICEF
Sep 12, 2007
UNITED NATIONS (AFP)  Deaths of children under age five around the world dropped below 10 million for the first time last year, according to United Nations Children’s Fund figures released Thursday.
Posted by Vulie Kunene on 02 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, Emergencies, General
