breastfeeding

• Areas to be covered

  • How breast-milk is made
  • Breast milk is the best food for the human infant
  • Benefits of breast-feeding for the infant and for the mother
  • Difference between Human milk and Cow’s
  • Breast feeding in the context of HIV
  • Breast feeding trends in Ghana and Ghana’s policy on breast feeding
  • Efforts to protect, promote and support breastfeeding
• All mammals produce milk and are used in feeding their babies
• Breastfeeding is viewed as a national asset
• How breast milk is made

  1. Preparation starts in pregnancy

  2. Laying down fat tissues

  3. Enlargement of breast tissues
• Key stimulus to breastfeeding

  • Infant sucking increases milk production

  
• A well nourished mother will produce between 750-800 mls of milk a day
• Let-down reflex


  Refers to the release of milk from the breast during breastfeeding
• Colostrum


  Early milk produced in the first 3-4 days when lactation starts