AOW study: Work deprives a third of Algerian women to breastfeed their babies

A recent study by the Algerian Observatory of Women in coordination with a Belgian laboratory shows that more than a third of Algerian women do not breastfeed their children because of work.

• The study was announced few days ago at Sheraton hotel in Algiers, where over 400 specialists attended including foreign doctors and midwives, as well as many child and maternity associations.
• The study also shows that Women who are breastfeeding are less subjected to breast cancer, as it allows the remove of excess fat during pregnancy, making reliance on breast-feeding necessary because it is useful for the mother and child in recovering the physical health, as well as strengthening the immune system in infants and protecting them from many diseases and infections.
• Head of the Algerian Observatory of Women, Djaafri Aicha, suggested a law to extend the maternity leave in Algeria for almost a year, in order to enable women to breast-feed their infants naturally without the early use of the bottle-feeding that has been abandoned in Europe, as is the case in Sweden, France and Britain.
• “The National Observatory of Women counted only 10% of Algerian women who breastfeed their infants on a regular basis, and it is up to the social life that obliged women to give up on breastfeeding in order to join their work”, Aicha told Echorouk on the sidelines of a study day about the reasons for the decline of breastfeeding in Algeria.
• “This is a low proportion which do not reflect the aspirations of the Algerian Observatory that operates in three major hubs, which would contribute to health care for women, as it comes to fighting breast cancer that kills 10 Algerian women everyday, according to a statement by Al Amal association for combating cancer, as well as to combat cervical cancer and promote breastfeeding through launching a lot of awareness campaigns and school days among women and within the workplaces, after it became necessary to make women aware of this reality throughout pregnancy and not only after giving birth”.
• “Foreign countries recorded a strong return of breastfeeding, at a time Algeria noticed a significant decline. European countries provide many possibilities and services for women after giving birth for full-time breastfeeding, through social assistance and providing cleaner to do the housework, thing which gives impetus  incentive for women to devote themselves to their babies”.
• The Belgian laboratory, which has established a branch in Algeria, announces on a new product that would help women on the production of the child needs of natural milk during the breastfeeding stage.