By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Aug. 6, GNA-Mr. Samuel Atuahene Antwi, the Nutrition Officer at Tema Metropolitan Health Directorate, has called on accreditation bodies to incorporate baby breastfeeding friendliness into the requirements for issuing licenses that provide maternity and neonatal services.
Mr. Antwi, speaking with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), as part of the directorates’ Breastfeeding Month Celebration, said it was important that private health facilities are encouraged to adopt and ensure they followed the 10 steps spelt out by the World Health Organisation for the attainment of baby-friendly facilities.
The WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) in 1991 to help motivate facilities providing maternity and newborn services worldwide to implement the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding.
In 2018, WHO revised the Ten Steps based on the 2017 guideline on protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding in facilities that provide maternity and newborn services.
He noted that it would not only help ensure that Ghana’s exclusive breastfeeding rate of about 50 per cent is increased to the target of 90 per cent and promote healthy babies who would grow into the needed manpower for the country.
He stated that, for instance, the Tema Metro has only four public health institutions that are doing their best to follow the points, while most of the about 40 private facilities in the area were not showing interest in it.
The nutritionist said it was important to encourage the private facilities to learn and understudy the works of the midwives at the Tema General Hospital (TGH), who are currently able to assist mothers, even those who underwent caesarean sections, to breastfeed on the theatre bed and an hour after returning to the ward.
He said pain management for the mothers had always been used as an excuse for the delay in breastfeeding initiation, stating that as TGH has been able to get the techniques to do so, the others could also do the same to ensure that babies get the full benefits of breastfeeding right from birth.
The WHO 10 points to baby-friendly facilities touch on critical management procedures through complying fully with the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and relevant World Health Assembly resolutions; having a written infant feeding policy that is routinely communicated to staff and parents; and establishing ongoing monitoring and data-management systems as the first point.
Point two is to ensure that staff have sufficient knowledge, competence, and skills to support breastfeeding.
It also calls for the discussion of the importance and management of breastfeeding with pregnant women and their families, facilitation of immediate and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact, and supporting mothers to initiate breastfeeding as soon as possible after birth.
Others are supporting mothers to initiate and maintain breastfeeding and manage common difficulties, as well as “Do not provide breastfed newborns any food or fluids other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.”
The baby-friendly facilities are also to enable mothers and their infants to remain together and to practice rooming-in 24 hours a day, support mothers to recognise and respond to their infant’s cues for feeding, counsel mothers on the use and risks of feeding bottles, teats, and pacifiers, as well as coordinate discharge so that parents and their infants have timely access to ongoing support and care.
GNA
LS/BM/GRB