Isn’t that the truth!
I chose breastfeeding as a public health topic to share because it is something that impacts children worldwide. No matter what economic level, education level, young, or old, breastfeeding is beneficial for all babies.
The benefits of breast feeding are well known and practiced in many places around the world. Although there might be different social views on breastfeeding there are also different reasons why mothers may choose or do not choose to breastfeed and also the length of time they decide to do it for. The average length of time for breastfeeding is at about 6 months even though there are some children that are breastfed until 24 months or longer.
In Colombia, South America only about 1.8% of mothers breast feed longer than 2 months. This low percentage has been related to several factors. Lack of education and underage mothers who give birth to low birth weight babies or premature babies are only a couple. Although breast feeding is a great benefit not only to the baby nutritionally but to these low income mothers financially, due to the lack of education on how to maintain lactation or how to properly lactate, milk is dried leaving mothers to result to formula. If these low income and young mothers are given the resources, I believe we can help these mothers to be able to help their babies grow up strong and healthy. A website that offers help throughout the word is La Leche League International (http://www.llli.org/). Here mothers may find resources, classes, support groups and so much more.
Teaching Cafeteritos 