SURKHET, AUGUST 9
Forty per cent of women in Karnali Province are found to be breast feeding their infants within one hour of birth.
The Health Service Directorate said, quoting the Multi Indicator Cluster Survey-2019, that 40 per cent of the women, who deliver babies at health facilities, breast feed the babies within an hour of their birth.
Similarly, 68 per cent new mothers breast feed their child for up to six months, which is more than the national average (62 per cent).
Karnali and Madhes provinces have overtaken the rest of the provinces when it comes to breast feeding the baby for up to six months. In Nepal, 62 per cent women breast feed their child for up to six months from birth.
Province Health Director Dr Rabin Khadka said that the Multi Indicator Cluster Survey-2019 showed the number of women breast feeding their infant within one hour of birth was more in Karnali than in Bagmati and Gandaki provinces.
He added that the Karnali Health Service Act has guaranteed the right of the child to be breast fed and also made provision for regulating the sale and distribution of baby food that replaces mother's milk.
MICS show that 29 per cent women in Gandaki and 30 per cent women in Bagmati breast feed their infant within an hour of birth.
The number of mothers who continue breast feeding their child up to two years from birth is 89 per cent. The number of mothers who bottle feed milk to their child is 12 per cent in Karnali.
Community nursing officer at the Public Health Section of the Ministry of Social Development, Kabita Khattri said breast feeding within an hour of birth reduces infant mortality rate by 33 per cent.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 10, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
