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It’s Safe Sleep Day, and with it comes a reminder how breastfeeding contributes to keeping babies and mothers healthy.
In a Lancet editorial published this week Auckland University’s head of obstetrics and gynaecology, Professor Lesley McCowan, and Liggins Institute neonatal paediatrician Dr Chris McKinlay say weight gain between pregnancies has been found to increase the risk of stillbirth and infant death.
Julie Stufkens from the New Zealand Breastfeeding Alliance says breastfeeding between pregnancies is a natural, economic and simple way to manage a mother’s weight.
Weight gain in pregnancy is designed to store energy in order to give the resources the body needs to breastfeed and sustain the baby for months after birth.
She says breastfed babies are less likely to be overweight or obese as adults and are less likely to develop cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The alliance is concerned Maori and Pasifika women have a lower breastfeeding rate than the overall population, and it wants to improve that rate as part of its aim to see breastfeeding become the cultural norm in New Zealand for mothers who can do so.
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