Doctor's prescription: Avoid using mobile phone while breastfeeding

 Chitwan, Aug 3: Medical doctors have suggested mothers not to use mobile phones while breastfeeding their babies.

In an interaction organized by Kantipur Health Online at Bharatpur, marking the World Breastfeeding Week today, they argued using mobile phones while breastfeeding would neither benefit mother nor the babies. Pediatricians at Bharatpur Hospital Dr Sweta Kumari Gupta advised the lactating mothers that they stopped using mobile phones during breastfeeding.

According to her, the use of mobile phone while breastfeeding could divert the attention of the mothers from their babies to elsewhere. "Mothers could remain unaware whether the baby consumed milk or not, got enough milk or not if she uses mobile phone while breastfeeding," she said, arguing that affection towards babies could also decrease.

Emphasizing touch and emotional engagement with the child to boost early childhood development, the doctor emphasized mothers to snuggle and caress their babies while nursing directly from the breast. Also to take into account during the suckling is the posture of both mother and baby. The newborn may not need anything except mother's milk till six months from the birth, she informed.

She added that regularly breastfed babies are less likely to suffer pneumonia, diarrhoea and asthma, among others. Stating that the mother's milk should be fed to babies as much as possible for the physical development of the kid, Dr Gupta said mother's milk could be collected and fed to baby if the new mothers have to go for work. According to her, mother's milk collected and kept in room temperature could be used within 4 to 6 hours, but it can be used within 24 hours if kept in refrigerator.

She, however, advised not to directly heat such refrigerated milk. Such milk should be warmed by placing it in a container and kept it in a hot water. It is suitable to give supplementary food to newborns after six months of their birth, she mentioned. If the government would put in place a rule allowing milk to be fed to newborns in the hospital through surgeries, such babies could be given milk's mother.

Citing the current situation where those babies born through surgeries are being fed power milk initially, she viewed that health of both mothers and newborns would be better if use of powder milk was put an end. Likewise, Prof Dr Sunil Mani Pokharel, gynecologist and Chief of Bharatpur Hospital's Department of Gynecology, claimed that regular feed of mother's milk would benefit both mothers and babies.

Breastfeeding the newborns up to six months would also boost health and physical development of the child. He said that feeding the mother's milk for 8 to 12 times a day would be beneficial for babies. Speaking about the benefits of breastfeeding to mothers, he shared that mothers who breastfeed regularly have less chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

Dr Pokharel mentioned that it is the ideal food to the babies, which reduces bleeding in women. "Babies should be breastfed for at least first two years. It helps foster love and affection between babies and mother." Sharing that in recent period, many mothers are avoiding this essential part of motherhood for the sake of physical beauty, he mentioned such act would however create adverse impacts on physical and mental growth of babies. Even the shirking mothers might face different types of health issues.

Dr Pokharel further shared that number of people visiting Bharatpur Hospital for maternity services has decreased in recent years. The hospital recorded more than 9,000 maternity cases in the last fiscal year while there were more than 12,000 in previous fiscal year.

Maternity service through health clinics at villages by the local levels as well as brain drain of youths are the reasons behind decreasing number of people visiting the hospital for maternity service, he explained. Stating that it was necessary to arrange wide publicity about the importance of breastfeeding, Chief Editor of Kantipur Health, Tilak Rimal stressed the need of creating convenient environment for breastfeeding in offices.