The Breast that feeds the future: Nurture it, Protect it, Check it

By Dorcas Zenabu Seidu Why breastfeeding and breast cancer are one story, and why women and men must both read it In the first hour of life, a mother’s breast delivers colostrum, the baby’s first vaccine. Over the next six months it can supply everything a child needs. It is one of the most powerful public health tools we have. It is also the site of the cancer most often diagnosed in Ghanaian women, and, surprisingly, one that men can get too. This is one organ and one story: how we nurture it, how we protect it, and why we must keep checking it. Nurture it: the first hour and the first six months WHO and UNICEF recommend starting breastfeeding within one hour of birth, the Golden Hour . Skin-to-skin contact steadies the newborn’s temperature and breathing and helps the mother’s womb contract, lowering the risk of postpartum bleeding.

Colostrum coats the baby’s gut with antibodies, so delaying it is a missed dose of the strongest immune protection the child will ever get from this source. WHO estimates that close to 400,000 deaths in children under five could be prevented each year if infants were exclusively breastfed for six months and breastfed on to two years. Mothers gain too: every 12 months of breastfeeding lowers breast cancer risk by about 4. 3%, and breastfeeding is linked to lower cardiovascular risk. For families, it removes the cost of formula, which in many homes rivals the rent. Formula remains a vital option when breastfeeding is truly not possible, but routine use without clean water and sterilisation raises the risk of infection. Make it possible: families, workplaces and policy Support has not kept pace with the science. The extended-family help that once carried new mothers has thinned, and many return to work long before six months. The ILO sets a…