Fewer Working Mothers in Cambodia Breastfeed
January 01, 2020
by VOA
The story of Sim Ark helps explain a problem in Cambodia that has health experts concerned: fewer Cambodian women are breastfeeding their babies.

Before giving birth to her second child, Sim Ark said she did not think much about what a workplace needed to support a new mother.

After her first child was born, she stayed at home. But now the 29-year-old works at the You Li International factory in Bavet city, in Cambodia.

"I want to have a daycare facility right in my workplace so that I can visit my baby while working," Sim Ark told VOA.

She had been working at You Li before giving birth to her son Ham Ya Oudom. After her son was born, her supervisors began calling her. Within three months she returned to work because she did not want to risk losing her job.

Since she was not at home during the day, Sim Ark was unable to breastfeed her newborn son. Instead the child received a breastmilk substitute, known as formula, from a bottle. At night, he changed back to breast milk unless Sim Ark worked overtime, which she said causes her milk to stop flowing.

On average, a 10-week-old baby consumes seven containers of infant formula within a month. Each container costs about $12. Most workers in the clothing industry earn about $182 each month. Sim Ark and other workers would like to be able to breastfeed their children until they are at least 6 months old, as doctors recommend. But they do not know how to raise the issue with their employers.

"I'm not sure how it (would) look like if we had [a daycare facility in a factory]. Maybe a family member could come and help [in the facility] to look after the baby," Sim Ark said, only to add, "Then nobody would be available to do the work at home."

Her return to work helps explain why the rate of breastfeeding is decreasing in Cambodia, a change that worries child development experts.

United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, said government data shows that 74 percent of Cambodia's children younger than 6 months old were breastfed in 2010. By 2014, the most recent year for which information is available, that number had fallen sharply. The country went from having one of the highest rates of breastfeeding to a midlevel rate of 65 percent.

Cristian Munduate is a UNICEF representative in Cambodia. She called this change a major decrease. She also described breastfeeding as "the best practice for a child during its first 6 months of life — the first natural vaccine that a child receives."

UNICEF suggests that correct breastfeeding practices could prevent an estimated 823,000 child deaths every year worldwide. The medical publication The Lancet reports that breastfeeding improves mental development, success in school and future earning potential.

Alive & Thrive is an international effort to support mother and infant health. It released a report on the costs of not breastfeeding in Cambodia. It said three major illnesses in children and mothers could sharply rise because of the fall in breastfeeding. Diarrhea and pneumonia in children and type II diabetes in mothers are believed to be kept under control by the practice.

The Alive & Thrive report also suggests Cambodia could lose $83 million a year because of future mental development losses linked with a lack of breastfeeding.
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Mark 2
" Breast IS Best "
Its been my observation that children breastfed are usually bigger ,smarter & taller than those who are not .

International Day of the Midwife: Protecting Mothers and Babies in Cambodia
4 May 2020

Pert Vorn, a midwife working in rural Cambodia, remembers a time when women in villages throughout the country had no access to proper sexual or reproductive care. Women would give birth on straw mats in their homes, assisted by a local birth attendant with no formal medical training. According to Pert, “if there were complications, the only option for labouring mothers was to ride an elephant for hours through the jungle to reach the district hospital.”

Today, she sees how drastically reproductive health services have improved. But the global COVID-19 pandemic has made an already difficult job even harder.

Often travelling vast distances on motorcycles, midwives like Pert bring quality care to women and families in rural areas, providing a service otherwise inaccessible to remote communities. But, with the onset of COVID-19, this small army of midwives must be more careful than ever, ensuring that they don’t contract the disease, or transmit it, thereby imperilling the very people they are seeking to help. They are forced to walk a fine line, taking precautions to avoid spreading disease while also maintaining the continuity of maternal health for those in remote communities.
https://asiapacific.unfpa.org/en/news/i ... s-cambodia

MarkRobinson wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 9:59 amIts been my observation that children breastfed are usually bigger ,smarter & taller than those who are not .

i had hard time persuading my partner i was breastfeeding when we met