The first 1000 days in a baby’s life, including the gestational period, are considered most critical for a child’s neurodevelopment and lifelong mental health. Breastfeeding is crucial to infant health. In addition to creating a strong emotional bonding between the mother-child dyad, breastfeeding provides total nutritional dependency of the baby on the mother. According to the report of UNICEF and the WHO, Sri Lanka ranked first in early initiation of breastfeeding; however, India ranked 57 th in the list.
This possibly can be attributed to the challenges associated with breastfeeding, such as low milk supply, strong let-down reflex, breast infection, plugged ducts, and most importantly, lack of knowledge about proper feeding procedures. To help mothers with breastfeeding, especially in the early days, a detailed understanding of breastfeeding mechanism is required. When a baby suckles…
