{"id":644,"date":"2013-12-14T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T09:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/blogs\/english\/?p=644"},"modified":"2013-12-14T10:00:55","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T09:00:55","slug":"breast-milk-why-it-is-irreplaceable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/breast-milk-why-it-is-irreplaceable\/","title":{"rendered":"Breast milk: why it is irreplaceable"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Bujumbura, the price of artificial milk for infants is going through the roof, leaving mothers with very few alternatives. But why artificial milk when you can breastfeed? <\/strong>-By Joanna Nganda<\/em><\/p>\n

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A mother breastfeeding her child<\/p><\/div>\n

Elsie, a mother of two, chose exclusive breastfeeding and as she says it herself \u201cit\u2019s the cheapest and safest way to feed your child.\u201d Unfortunately, along the benefits of breastfeeding came the other side of the coin \u201cin addition to stretch marks, I lost my bust. It\u2019s completely deflated, it looks like a pair of old socks! But I don\u2019t regret breastfeeding my sons, they deserve the best and that\u2019s what breasts are for: to feed your baby, not to look pretty. Breastfeeding is natural.\u201d However, most women in Bujumbura do not feel the same way about breastfeeding despite WHO\u2019s recommendations to exclusively breastfeed infants up to 6 months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary food up to 2 years of age or beyond. \u201cI am a very busy mother\u201d declares Jeanine, a pharmacy manager \u201cI leave home at 6 a.m. and come back very late at night; the only alternative for me is artificial milk. I can\u2019t possibly go home every 2 or 3 hours to feed my baby, I\u2019d lose my job!\u201d
\nFor Ornella, a young and stylish single mother, the reasons are simply aesthetic \u201cI don\u2019t want to get saggy breasts just yet, I am still young. My sister has 2 kids and her breast is a sorry sight, that\u2019s why I have chosen artificial milk. My baby is healthy and I don\u2019t regret my choice.\u201d Ornella goes on saying that if the prices continue to climb, she will start using regular box cow milk instead. But how safe is cow milk for an infant? Is milk destined to feed a 300kg calf appropriate for a 3.5kg baby?<\/p>\n

\u201cCow\u2019s milk is appropriate for a calf, not an infant\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Doctor Amelie Nijimbere, pediatrician, cow\u2019s milk is nowhere close to safe when given to an infant under 6 months \u201ccow\u2019s milk is appropriate for a calf, not an infant. Its purpose is to develop the calf\u2019s weight and height, but unlike breast milk, it doesn\u2019t have enough lactose to allow the infant\u2019s brain to develop well and quickly. In fact, if you put two babies in a situation, the one who is breastfed reacts faster and in a smarter way than the one whose diet is cow\u2019s milk\u201d declares Dr. Nijimbere. Cow\u2019s milk is not adapted for an infant and might cause diseases that could have been avoided by breastfeeding. These diseases range from mild to serious \u201cdigestive discomfort and illness such as diarrhea can easily lead to malnutrition; you understand that there\u2019s not enough time for the food to be absorbed by the baby\u2019s intestines. This leads to serious cases of kwashiorkor. Besides digestive problems, the infant can also show signs of eczema and the skin becomes rough and callous\u201d, explains Dr. Nijimbere,\u201dcow\u2019s milk is deprived of antibodies, a situation which exposes the infant to a lot of health problems among which respiratory issues where the baby has a very specific kind of cough, and even asthma in the worst cases,\u201d Dr. Amelie Nijimbere says. She also adds that cow\u2019s milk molecules are heavier than breast\u2019s milk and they leave lesions in the intestines that will cause irritation and fragility. Due to the heavy molecules, the infant\u2019s immature kidneys suffer greatly because they have to filter molecules that are too heavy for them. This can sometimes cause kidney failure. Dr. Amelie Nijimbere urges mothers to always choose breastfeeding \u201cartificial milk will never be as good as breast milk, no matter how hard laboratories will try to make cow\u2019s milk resemble breast milk. A good alternative to breastfeeding is to pump and store the milk in the fridge for later use. This way, busy mothers can leave some milk at home and the nanny will feed the baby. Storing breast milk is an easy solution, and it is very well-preserved up to 5 days in the fridge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Bujumbura, the price of artificial milk for infants is going through the roof, leaving mothers with very few alternatives. But why artificial milk when you can breastfeed? -By Joanna Nganda Elsie, a mother of two, chose exclusive breastfeeding and as she says it herself \u201cit\u2019s the cheapest and safest way to feed your child.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[101,200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}