From Au­gust 1 to Au­gust 7, World Breast­feed­ing Week is recog­nised. It is cel­e­brat­ed in over 170 coun­tries around the world and high­lights the im­por­tance of breast­feed­ing for chil­dren world­wide. This an­nu­al cam­paign has been cel­e­brat­ed for the last 27 years and con­tin­ues to grow every year. The week is launched in­ter­na­tion­al­ly by the World Al­liance for Breast­feed­ing Ac­tion (WA­BA) and is en­dorsed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s Fund (UNICEF) and The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO).

World breast­feed­ing week aims to high­light the ben­e­fits that breast­feed­ing can bring to the health of in­fants, young chil­dren, and their moth­ers. With the ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of milk al­ter­na­tives read­i­ly avail­able to ex­pect­ing and new moms world­wide, breast­feed­ing is slow­ly be­com­ing a thing of the past. There has al­so been much stig­ma over the act of breast­feed­ing in re­cent years with women be­ing shamed for breast­feed­ing their chil­dren in pub­lic spaces. Re­gard­less of what your stance on the top­ic may be, the facts re­main the same. Breast­feed­ing still is and al­ways will be the health­i­est op­tion for ba­bies and young chil­dren.

Be­sides its nu­mer­ous health ben­e­fits, which we will list lat­er on, breast­feed­ing has an emo­tion­al side that we can­not over­look. In a chat with Amy Bartholomew, Coun­sel­lor, at the Breast Feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, she ex­plained that breast­feed­ing re­leas­es a hor­mone that es­tab­lish­es a bond be­tween the moth­er and the ba­by that is just as im­por­tant as the nu­tri­tion­al ben­e­fits. This bond prompts an emo­tion­al close­ness that plays an im­por­tant role in the in­fant’s de­vel­op­ment for years to come. Here are a few oth­er ben­e­fits that she list­ed:

Breast milk con­tains the per­fect nu­tri­ents for the hu­man ba­by.

It holds enough wa­ter for the ba­by.

It is clean, the per­fect tem­per­a­ture and al­ways ready.

It con­tains an­ti­bod­ies.

It pre­vents dis­eases.

It re­duces al­ler­gies and asth­ma.

It con­tributes to the prop­er de­vel­op­ment of the hu­man brain.

It re­duces the risk of di­a­betes.

It pro­motes faster post­par­tum re­cov­ery for the moth­er.

It helps the moth­er’s uterus re­turn to pre-preg­nan­cy size.

It aids in faster weight loss for the moth­er.

It helps to pre­vent the moth­er from get­ting cer­tain types of can­cer like breast, uter­ine and ovar­i­an can­cer.

It is ben­e­fi­cial to the en­vi­ron­ment as there is no waste.

It is eco­nom­i­cal be­cause it is free.

The Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (TBATT) is a vol­un­tary, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed to pro­tect, pro­mote and sup­port breast­feed­ing. The as­so­ci­a­tion was found­ed in 1977 as The In­for­ma­tive Breast­feed­ing Ser­vice (TIBS) but in 2015 its name was changed to The Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (TBATT).

The Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion works to en­cour­age par­ents to make the best de­ci­sion for their ba­bies’ health, that is, to give them breast milk ex­clu­sive­ly for the first six months of life, and to con­tin­ue breast­feed­ing af­ter sol­id food is in­tro­duced up to two years of age and be­yond. The Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion en­cour­ages and sup­ports moth­ers and moth­ers-to-be who wish to breast­feed their ba­bies and works to cre­ate, in all com­mu­ni­ties, aware­ness of the im­por­tance of hu­man milk.

For more in­for­ma­tion or to get in­volved with FREE breast­feed­ing coun­selling, you can call: The Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Cen­tre, Curepe Tel: 468-5412, Breast­feed­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Cen­tre, St. Clair, POS Tel: 628-8234 or email, breast­feedin­gas­so­ca­tiontt@gmail.com