Breast Feeding Education

I never wondered about the benefits of early breast feeding until I saw the movie “Taste of Life” along with advertisements about the first breast feeding sponsored by BBC in 2005.

My mother had passed along the conventional wisdom from old people that “the first breast feeding” was unhealthy or dirty, and so her traditional mid-wife had thrown it away, thereby depriving me of the benefits of colostrum. That’s a commonly held belief in many provinces today by the old people in her own village more than 200 km from where I was born in Battambang.

My 23-year-old friend from Prey Veng just recently raised her own doubts about the benefits of “the first breast feeding.” Colostrum is nature’s first milk – it’s uniquely high in protein and anti-bodies needed by newborns. We asked my friend’s mother who said she still believes that the first breast feeding is bad for the baby.

So, my friend was shocked that she might have the same destiny as me. I now wonder whether the reason I am shorter and have poorer teeth than my younger sister is related to the lack of protein and antibodies received as a newborn. My younger sister who was only 2.5 kilos at birth and had less nutrition was born in a modern hospital where the doctor told my mother to give her the first breast feeding. In her childhood she ate very selective food. She didn’t like fish. I ate everything because my father was wealthy during my childhood.

Please spend more time asking our villagers in different areas of the country about “the first breast feeding” before making any conclusions about their understanding of it. This will promote Cambodian public health and human resources.