Speaker A
[Music] Breastfeeding is the best way to provide newborns with the nutrients they need. In 2009, World Breastfeeding Week from August 1st to August 7th aims to draw attention to the vital role that breastfeeding plays in emergencies worldwide, as well as to stress the need for active protection and support of breastfeeding before and during emergencies. Breastfeeding, a vital emergency response. Are you ready? Is this year's theme. World Breastfeeding Week is extremely important because it gives everyone an opportunity to reflect and think about the importance of breastfeeding not only for newborns but also for mothers, for families, and for society. It's the first week of August every year when there's a specific theme. This year's theme is breastfeeding in emergencies to be sure that babies are prepared during times of disaster. But the best way to prevent or protect breastfeeding during disaster is to protect breastfeeding in general. Children are the most vulnerable in emergencies when child mortality can be from two to seventy times higher than average due to diarrhea, respiratory illness, and malnutrition. Well, breastfeeding is the most effective intervention to save children's lives, particularly for newborns that are most at risk of mortality. Breastfeeding provides not only essential nutrients but also all sorts of immunities to common childhood illnesses. It also has long-term benefits both for the baby and for the mother. Babies who are breastfed have higher IQs. Mothers who breastfeed lose weight more rapidly after the babies are born. And so there's constantly new evidence emerging about how breastfeeding protects babies both early in life as well as throughout the life course. The mother's milk is white gold. The mother's milk is a live element. An element that not only transmits live cells, something that doesn't happen with any other type of food, but that also passes on nursing, affection, love, and sensitivity from the mother to her baby. One of the objectives of World Breastfeeding Week 2009 is to inform mothers, breastfeeding advocates, communities, health professionals, governments, aid agencies, donors, and the media on how they can actively support breastfeeding before and during an emergency. During emergencies, mothers need active support to continue or reestablish breastfeeding, and supporting breastfeeding in non-emergency settings is a way to ensure that mothers will be better equipped to cope in an emergency. In such a case, everyone has to make an effort to implement and monitor the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes, reactivate the baby-friendly hospital initiative, and ensure adequate maternity leave and make workplaces baby-mother friendly by providing rooms for safe expression and storage of breast milk. Emergency preparedness is vital. Hospitals and other health care services must train health workers to help mothers establish breastfeeding and/or overcome difficulties. [Music]
