The importance of breastfeeding
The World Health Organization (WHO)推荐exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby’s life, followed by additional semi-solid foods to complement breast milk. Breastfeeding should preferably be continued up to at least two years in order to protect the child from various forms of malnutrition.
同样，母乳喂养的早期开始对于新生儿的生存，生长和营养至关重要。此外，它还以良好的大脑发育和学习能力以及保护儿童免受糖尿病而闻名。
However in low- and middle-income countries like India, awareness and adoption of modern family planning methods like breastfeedingare very low.
With all the above mentioned benefits, breastfeeding has never been a central agenda in the long history of health reform in India. With several schemes and plans of action to curb maternal and infant deaths, much of the action has focused only on antenatal check-ups, conducting quality institutional deliveries and sound neonatal care.
Resulting outcomes are obvious. Figures related to malnutrition in India are shocking relative to our overall economic development and progress in recent years.Accordingto the World Bank, rates of malnutrition among India’s children are nearly five times more than in China and twice those in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Barriers in India
尽管传统上印度仍然是一个支持母乳喂养，社会心理和文化障碍的国家仍然存在for early breastfeeding practices. Indicators for breastfeeding practices and three big indicators of childhood nutrition (which majorly rely on breastfeeding) are one of the worst in the World.
将近一半(60 million) of the children in India are underweight (weight for their age), 45% are stunted (too short in height for their age) and 20% are wasted (too thin for their height). Similarly breastfeeding indicators are not encouraging at all.
只有四分之一的母亲能够在分娩后的一小时内开始母乳喂养，而不到一半的母亲能够在出生后的前六个月中独家母乳喂养婴儿。
Since 1990, when economic reforms had taken place in India, lots of women have joined formal workforces, initially in the public sector andnow increasingly在蓬勃发展的私营部门企业中。
Working and breastfeeding
TheMaternity Benefit Act of 1961允许在交货前四个星期和六周（现在已修订至12周）的带薪产假。尽管该法案的执行在公共部门仍然很斑点，但根据其各自公司管辖的可变规则，私营部门的职业妇女获得可变的产妇福利。
Even though the Act mentions two mandatory nursing breaks of limited time during the course of work (after the mother comes back to work from maternity leave) this has still been poorly implemented.
World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is celebrated every year from 1st到7thAugust across 176 countries coordinated by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA). This year (2015) the theme for the WBW was working women and breastfeeding with the aim of a mother-friendly workplace initiative.
WABA calls for aglobal actionto support women to combine breastfeeding and work. By following some simple benchmarks on nursing care at work places like those outlined in联合国儿童基金会的母乳喂养指南,lots of childhood morbidity and mortality can be averted.
Stricter implementation of maternity protection acts and regulation in both public and private sector workplaces is the need of the hour. Let us not only celebrate the occasion (WBW) but also consider good breastfeeding practices as part of our larger sustainable development goals.
Find out how much you know about breastfeeding in ourquiz，让我们知道您对这五个要点的看法here.
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