World Breastfeeding Week 2021: “Breastfeeding is food security for babies”

Recent events of looting and violence, and the impact it had on healthcare services for mothers and their new-borns, have again highlighted the important role that breastfeeding plays in securing food for the child as well as promoting good outcomes for children.

So says Stasha Jordan (executive director of the South African Breastmilk Reserve) and Dr Chantelle Witten (nutrition lead at the South African Civil Society for Women’s, Adolescents’ and Children’s Health) at the start of World Breastfeeding Week 2021.

The annual event runs from 1-7 August 2021, and this year puts the focus on how breastfeeding contributes to the survival, health and wellbeing of all, and the imperative to protect breastfeeding worldwide.

The theme is aligned with thematic area 2 of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which highlights the links between breastfeeding and survival, health and wellbeing of women, children and nations.

“The chaos that we saw during the violence in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal echoed the kind of disruptions we also observed during the first days of lockdown. It brought into focus the fragile food system and growing concerns around food security for most people. As far as babies and breastfeeding mothers are concerned, the same kind of disruptions played itself out when it comes to access to food when they were left with no real access to formula milk,” says Jordan.

It was further exacerbated, she adds, by some dangerous recipes for home-made formula milk.

“A call was put out to the South African Breastmilk Reserve to mobilise support for the human milk banks affected by the recent riots and to engage in health literacy that promotes breastfeeding to achieve food security for babies. While food deliveries to KZN province resumed after 7 days, many mothers had to leave the safety of their homes to drive long distances to find formula milk,” explains Jordan.

An emergency stakeholder group was formed to raise donations of breastmilk for affected areas. This emergency stakeholder group ignited a strong network of lactation consultants, human milk bankers, healthcare professionals and policy makers to coordinate and cooperate in promoting breastfeeding and advocacy for breastfeeding as the public health strategy to protect children in extreme situations when food insecurity is compromised. ​

The emergency stakeholder group was instrumental in activating a breastmilk drive that resulted in the collection of 100 units of breastmilk in support of iThembaLethu breastmilk bank and through the group transport and volunteers rallied to get the breast milk from Johannesburg to the facility in Durban.

Fortunately, the transport routes to KZN were re-opened and the SABR courier services were able to collect and dispatch an extra 500 units of breastmilk in support of a variety of human milk banks nationally.

“This new collaboration among health advocates for breastfeeding has heightened our awareness and appreciation of the invaluable role of breastfeeding, especially in a time of crisis. At the same time, the urgent calls for infant formula has laid bare just how fragile the infant feeding landscape remains to this day,” says Jordan. ​

The large volumes of formula looted from the shops together with the influx of infant formula donations into KZN, threaten the breastfeeding gains that the province has made since the withdrawal of free milk formula through the programme for the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in 2011.

“As breastfeeding advocates, we recognize the gaps in scaling up efforts for the protection, promotion, and support for breastfeeding. Without a strong culture of breastfeeding, raising donations for human milk banking becomes very difficult,” says Dr Witten.

Now more than ever, she believes the KZN situation has highlighted the urgent need to expand and intensify efforts to pursue all avenues to support breastfeeding mothers throughout the health system, in their workplaces and in their social settings.

“We realise that education and support of new mothers as well as the upskilling of healthcare professionals to promote and support breastfeeding is imperative as an on-going activity because breastfeeding is an everyday practice requiring skilled support. Our role as breastfeeding advocates and health educators is key to maintaining mother and baby friendly values both in the health system and at the community level,” reiterates Dr Witten.

Given the unprecedented situation in KZN and the aggressive drive for infant formula donations, a communication strategy in support of breastfeeding and the awareness of the country’s legislation to control the marketing and promotion of milk formula was launched by the National Department of Health, and the South African Civil Society for Women’s, Adolescents’ and Children’s Health.

A media blitz was initiated to raise awareness of the importance of breastfeeding to encourage mothers to seek help early to overcome breastfeeding challenges and difficulties. This was done with the support of the South African Certified Lactation Consultants (SACLC).

South Africa has committed to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding such as through a variety of cross sectoral interventions, under the guidance of the Department of Health.

Pregnant and breastfeeding women are legally protected in the work place, furthermore the marketing and promotion of infant formula are regulated in such a way as to prevent the erosion of breastfeeding values. ​

The United Nation’s nutrition targets for 2025 calls on signatory countries to reach a country level of at least 50% exclusive breastfeeding for all infants less than 6 months. At the current rate of progress, South Africa will not reach that target of 50% exclusive breastfeeding by 2025. ​

“As poverty and food insecurity deepens, it is imperative that we protect, promote and support breastfeeding to ensure that infants and children have a secured and sustained food source at the mother’s breast. ​

“What we have learned from recent events in KZN is that formula-dependent mothers experienced additional trauma in what is an ongoing Covid19 pandemic by not having formula milk.

“In the spirit of the theme of World Breastfeeding Week 2021 – ‘Protect Breastfeeding: A Shared Responsibility’ – and to safeguard our mothers and babies, we must commit every effort to protect breastfeeding as a shared responsibility,” says Jordan.

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ABOUT SOUTH AFRICAN BREASTMILK RESERVE

• The South African Breastmilk Reserve (SABR) is a not-for-profit, human milk-banking organisation, founded in 2003.
• While we are primarily an altruistic human milk-banking network, we also focus on breastfeeding advocacy and promotion, in order to grow breastfeeding in South Africa.
• 5729 hospitalised premature babies received breastfeeding support from the SABR in the period 2020/21. This is 2800 more than the previous year, nearly doubling the impact from 3200.
• We achieved this through a mix of technological upgrades to our online recipient signup system as well as the optimization of existing resources that allowed us to collect an ever-growing volume of breastmilk at a lower processing costs.
• The SABR also launched a social impact channel Against All Odds - YouTube to showcase the work of Civil Society organizations
• For more about SABR visit: https://www.sabr.org.za.

ABOUT WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK 2021

• The week will focus on how breastfeeding contributes to the survival, health and wellbeing of all, and the imperative to protect breastfeeding worldwide. The theme is aligned with thematic area 2 of the WBW-SDG 2030 campaign which highlights the links between breastfeeding and survival, health and wellbeing of women, children and nations.
• Find more info at https://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/

ABOUT SASCoWACH

• In South Africa, there are a number of civil society organisations, institutions and individuals working within child, adolescent and maternal and women’s health who have the potential to positively influence policies and programs to address Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) and to raise awareness amongst key target audiences, including the community. For this reason a CSO coalition was formed in 2015 called the South African Civil Society for Women’s Adolescents’ and Children’s Health (SACSoWACH).
• SACSoWACH has a very important function, to strengthen the link with government and the community, to mobilise the community to increase demand for essential services they are entitled to, and to enforce the accountability of the Department of Health in its commitment to improve access to quality reproductive healthcare.
• These actions are essential for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2016 onwards.
• More information at https://www.sacsowach.org.za/

Issued by HWB Communications Pty Ltd on behalf of the South African Breastmilk Reserve

For media queries, please contact Martin Slabbert on 079 500 1503 or [email protected]