Mothers encouraged to breatfeed longer

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian mothers exclusively breast-feed their babies for an average of 1.8 months rather than the ideal period of four months, according to an expert.

The United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) representative for Indonesia and Malaysia, Stephen J. Woodhouse, told Antara Saturday that the short breastfeeding period contributed to rampant malnutrition and lower immunity in babies.

"It is important that mothers breast-feed their new-born babies at least for four months to give babies better nutrition, which is vital for the development of their brain," Woodhouse said during a gathering at Sukapura Islamic Hospital in North Jakarta.

The 1997 survey of Unicef noted that most babies who receive less than four months of their mothers' milk were undernourished.

"I hope the government encourages breastfeeding programs at all levels of society so we can prevent babies from catching diseases and lower the infant mortality rate," he said.

The current infant mortality rate in Indonesia is 53 out of 1,000 live births, Woodhouse added.

Due to the prolonged economic crisis, 70 percent or about 15 million children under five years of age are undernourished, he noted.

Statistics from 1998 show there were a total of 20,136,300 million children under five years of age in the country.

"About eight percent or 2.5 million children under five are in a severe stage of malnutrition," he added.

In a bid to curb further impacts of malnutrition, Unicef has run several programs, including supplementary food projects and income generating activities among poor families through small- scale economic projects, he said.

"Malnutrition in the first two years of life is devastating because 90 percent of brain cells develop during that period," Woodhouse said.

Earlier, Minister of Health Farid Anfasa Moeloek stated that the ministry had channeled a total of Rp 1.4 trillion from the social safety net fund to support health improvement at the grassroots level by upgrading the roles of health community posts in helping needy mothers and children.

Farid said poor mothers and children could go to nearby health community posts for health assistance as well as for nutritious supplementary food.

The Ministry of Health has reported at least 610 deaths due to marasmus and kwashiorkor in recent months.

In response to the worsening nutritional intake of Indonesians, Unicef plans to distribute nine million packages of food supplements through 11,000 integrated health service posts in 2,500 villages in 325 regencies here, hoping to benefit 375,000 children.

Each package is actually worth Rp 4,000 but sold for Rp 500. "Because we want the parents to be responsible for their children... we're not giving it for free," Woodhouse added. (edt)