On Selma and breastfeeding in Africa

I'll try to make this shorter than last week... got a little carried away about the chickens..

Will let me know about a video that was posted to You Tube of Selma Hayek breastfeeding an African baby on Friday, which he said was viewed more than a million times in less than a day. Hah! Good on her! (as an Aussie would say) He also informed me that the "worst part is, apparently Sierra Leon has the worst childhood mortality rate in the world (25% don't make it to 5, or something unbelievable like that) because they're rarely breastfed, because the enlightened Sierra Leoni men won't have sex with their wives while they're breastfeeding, so the men make them stop...." NICE, guys, nice.

I told my coworkers Liz (Gender & Health Coordinator) and Maggie (Nurse) about the breast feeding thing and they're aghast! Liz wants to know what the rate of breast cancer is in Sierra Leone and says it's probably be higher than normal from the women NOT breastfeeding. She also says that if you breastfeed exclusively it acts as a family planning method. Biologically that makes perfect sense. Who knew!

I was going to go out to the field (aka to one of the nine elementary school/adult education centers we run) with Maggie today to hear her give a talk about preventing mother to child HIV/AIDS transmission, but a kid had an epileptic attack this morning at one of the centers, so she took off to attend to that. The kids in our schools are orphans, ex-street kids, or from reeeeeally poor families, so she found a place that will give the kid free health care. (Very glad to hear that.) So we'll do the talk tomorrow.

I know you're disappointed that *you'll* be missing the talk, so in case you're curious, it's not that hard to avoid transmitting AIDS to an infant, as long as an HIV positive mother:

* doesn't feed the baby from a breast that is infected or if a nipple is cracked or bleeding (I'm laughing at the idea of Eli reading this at work...)
* bottle feeds if the baby has any mouth sores
* uses condoms to prevent reinfection. Becoming reinfected ups the amount of HIV in the mother's system, which increases the likelihood of transmission.

Despite the small additional risk of breastfeeding, it's still recommended that rural women breastfeed instead of bottle feed if they're HIV positive because

* of the benefit of the antibodies and nutrition in breast milk
* they may not have the money required to buy formula
* they may not have the time to gather wood to sterilize the water for the formula
* they may not have the time to prepare formula 12 x per day (women here work HARD)

It's funny, breastfeeding in public is completely normal here. Moms will nurse in the middle of the market, church, wherever. I think it makes sense--what's the big deal? But of course, this is coming from me, she who thinks beaches should be topless to avoid tan lines, like the South of France! (I know that Danielle's rolling her eyes as she reads this!) I showed Liz and Maggie a "cover up" I found on-line that you can buy as not to offend anyone when breastfeeding in the U.S., which they think is hilarious. I did a double take on seeing the blond women with a little pink baby modeling the cover-up, as I've seen nothing but cute African babies for three weeks straight now, and forgot that babies even come in any other color but dark brown.

In closing, I think it's ironic how here in Kenya, displaying a breast is natural and acceptable for women, and yet wearing shorts is scandalous. Not that that stops some of the University Girls—as we are fond of calling them—from dressing like hoochies. At least until their parents get home! I guess some things are universal! :-)

Cheers to Ms. Hayek!

Your misungu,
Katy

P.S. Yeah I know that wasn't much shorter than last time... I'll work on it..