Breaking The Taboo: This Group Helps Breastfeeding Mothers All Across India

4 Aug 2016 11:41 AM GMT

Editor : The Logical Indian

#BreastfeedingWeek

Activists and experts say that convincing a new mother or a family on breastfeeding a newborn within an hour of birth or up to six months is a big task, as it is considered taboo.Age-old myths like giving sacred water from the local temple or giving honey to the infant still continues in today’s society. Not only rural but urban population also follows it.

Only 12 percent women in Delhi, the national capital exclusively breastfeed their children for the first 6 month that is a little bit above to average 9.4% in Haryana.

Breastfeeding Support for Indian Mothers(BSIM) is a peer to peer support group for breastfeeding mothers, their partners and family members. BSIM was founded in the June 2013 by Adhunika Prakash (who is now a certified Lactation Educator and Counsellor) with the intention of empowering women with information. Initially, it was a Pune based Facebook group, but as the number of members from across the country increased, the group was renamed and the target audience was widened.

The Facebook Support group which has about 20,000 members is where members, peer counsellors (PCs) and admins help mothers with breastfeeding queries 24X7 for free. These members are at various stages of their breastfeeding journey, ranging from pregnant to those with older children following natural term nursing. Even though the group is primarily targeted towards Indians, they do have members who are from various countries and cities around the world. Some members have been inspired by the group to get professionally trained in the area of Lactation.

All these mothers hope to empower women with information to enable them to take informed decisions on their breastfeeding journey. They have some medical professionals on the group as well who wish to get educated about breastfeeding.

There is a wealth of information available on the Facebook group for women in different phases of pregnancy to women that wish to feed their child until the child self-weans. BSIM believes that all parents do the best they can for their children based on the information and support available to them, and therefore they limit to being information providers.

World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is an annual celebration which is being held every year from 1 to 7 August in more than 120 countries.

The goal is to promote exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life which yields tremendous health benefits, providing critical nutrients, protection from deadly diseases such as pneumonia.