Declamation Contest held on World Breast Feeding Week Celebration at DMCH

Ludhiana, August 7, 2013: As a part of ‘21st World Breast Feeding Week celebration’ Department of Pediatrics and IAP Ludhiana today organised a declamation contest on topic ‘Breast Feeding: Support & close to mothers’.

The speakers, during the contest, underlined the importance of breastfeeding for achieving the overall physical and mental growth of children.

Principal and Professor of Pediarics-Dr Daljit Singh informed that convincing a new mother or a family on breastfeeding a newborn within an hour of birth or up to six months continues to be a tough task. He further said that age-old myths like giving honey or sacred water from the local temple to the infant still continues to be the norm. And this is followed by people living in both rural and urban areas,

“One of the common practices in India is to give bottle milk, which is dangerous for babies,” said Professor & Head of Pediatrics- Dr Harmesh Singh Bains. Feeding with bottle milk can lead to respiratory infections, diarrhoea and malnutrition.

 According to recently-published data, in rural areas, myths and age-old traditions prevent women from breastfeeding, while in urban areas, most working mothers don’t have the time.

“The babies’ health should be of prime importance. Working women can extract breast milk and maintain it at room temperature for nearly eight hours and give it at short intervals. It will not do any harm to the infant,” said Dr Promila Jindal, Professor & Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.