The Greater Regional Health Directorate has encourage mothers to continuously breastfeed their Children. According to a survey by the Directorate, breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival because it provides essential, irreplaceable nutrition for a child’s growth and development.
It also serves as a child’s first immunization – providing protection from respiratory infections, diarrhoeal disease, and other potentially life-threatening ailments. Exclusive breastfeeding with early initiation, also has a protective effect against obesity and certain non-communicable diseases later in life.
Accordingly, early initiation of breastfeeding measures at what time infants are put to breast after delivery. Table 1 and Figure 1 shows a regional trend of this indicator. The trend shows that from 2021, there was an increase of 2% in the number of women who initiated breastfeeding within 30 minutes after delivery.
the survey however indicated that, exclusive breastfeeding within 3 months stagnated at 83%, while exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months declined by 1% compared to same period last year. This could be due relaxation of baby friendly services in some of our facilities and inadequate data capture.
Figure 32: Early initiation of breastfeeding Rate