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This feat crossed national boundaries in a collaborative, global
effort to promote, protect and support breastfeeding. “We want
to elevate breastfeeding to a level where it is considered the
norm, where mothers and children are proud to breastfeed.,” said
Elvira L. Henares-Esguerra, Director of Children for
Breastfeeding.
The effort
for global synchronized breastfeeding will also bring attention
from policy makers to the communities to recognize the
importance of breastfeeding initiation during the first hour.
“The challenge is to find creative and convincing ways at the
community level to encourage breastfeeding and to provide
national authorities with solid evidence of the advantages of
promoting breastfeeding at the national level,” said Ann Veneman,
Executive Director of UNICEF.
The events
attracted collaborations from UN agencies, governments,
hospitals and other NGOs. “The authorities who attended our
event were very touched. It is important to show policy makers
the importance to support mothers to breastfeed, particularly
during the first hour of babies’ lives,” said Yanet Olivares of
Dominican Republic, which recorded 77 mother-baby pairs.
Many braved
storms and continuous rains in Asia to join this historic event.
Belen Dofitas was one committed mother in the Philippines. “Matt
and I traveled despite the storm, and we managed to gather 40
mothers and children pairs at our site,” she said.
Many mothers
and babies were also accompanied by spouses and other family
members as a sign of family commitment towards helping mothers
to breastfeed successfully. In Malaysia, Pong Yong How, a
first-time father who accompanied his wife and baby at the event
in Penang, said it was important for fathers to encourage
breastfeeding. “Breastfeeding is not an easy job. Newborns have
to be fed over 10 times a day,” he said.
This is the
first time WABA is sponsoring a coordinated global activity for
World Breastfeeding Week (WBW), celebrated in the first week of
August in over 120 countries worldwide. The theme for 2007 is
Breastfeeding: The 1st Hour -
Early initiation and
exclusive breastfeeding for six months can save more than ONE
million babies!,
emphasizing that one
simple action of allowing the baby to initiate breastfeeding in
the first hour of life could potentially save one million
babies.
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