Breast is Still Best
 
 
August is Breastfeeding Awareness Month and the Union County Health Department reminds all new moms that local breastfeeding support is available through the health department and Memorial Hospital of Union County.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report Ohio’s 2009 breastfeeding initiation rate of 58.5 percent ranks 47th in the nation, down from 44th in 2008. To help improve this rate, the Union County Health Department and the Ohio Department of Health are partnering with local hospitals and other healthcare providers to institute the World Health Organization’s research-based Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. These steps provide a supportive pathway enabling women to achieve their breastfeeding intentions and guiding the training of healthcare workers in breastfeeding support.

While it is preferred that all Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding are initiated at the hospital immediately following delivery, if that is not possible, the following five steps are considered the most important:

• Infants are breastfed in the first hour after birth
• Infants stay in the same room as their mothers
• Infants are fed only breast milk and receive no supplementation
• No pacifier is used
• Hospital staff give mothers a telephone number to call for help with breastfeeding
  

“If only one research-based step can be instituted, that step should be to facilitate skin to skin holding by the mother for up to one hour right after birth,” said ODH Director Alvin D. Jackson, M.D. “ This one step would greatly increase bonding between mothers and babies and provide a supportive setting for natural, baby led breastfeeding.”
 
A recent article in Pediatrics (the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) determined that if 80 percent of US families could comply with medical recommendations to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months, the United States would save $10.5 billion per year and prevent an excess of 741 deaths, nearly all of which would be in infants.

“In light of the monetary and life saving benefits of breastfeeding, all elements of the community, including hospitals and other healthcare facilities, must cooperate and support breastfeeding,” said Mani Syar, WIC dietician for the Union County Health Department. “Ultimately, our whole society benefits from having healthier mothers, babies and children when breastfeeding is promoted, protected and supported.”

For more information about breastfeeding support in Union County, please call the Union County Health Department’s WIC office at (937) 645-2061.