Since 1988 the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF) has been conducting child survival activities in remote Haitian villages using resident health agents. The program is considered by other PVOs as a model for Haiti and by evaluators as one of the best child survival programs in the world. HHF encouraged exclusive breast feeding from the start, and in 1993 began a program to promote the Lactational Amenorrhea Method, in collaboration with Georgetown University. In 1995, the year HHF joined the UNICEF-sponsored national breast feeding campaign, HHF reached a critical mass of over 1000 women who breast fed exclusively for six months. During the campaign UNICEF provided funding for paid educators to make home visits to promote breast feeding; later this was phased out as HHF recruited women who exclusively breast fed to work as volunteers in counseling ten other women. HHF began to document and computerized each mother’s breastfeeding pattern (complete, partial or token) ; this continues today. In additon, HHF encouraged the shift from the common practice of giving newborns an unhealthy purgative called lok (consisting of castor oil and ground cockroaches). HHF adopted the approach used by CARE/Haiti, teaching that “the first milk is the best purgative.” An evaluation in 1998 found that the practice of giving lok had been completely discontinued in the HHF zone. Today the rate of 6-months exclusive breast feeding is over 60% in the HHF zone, compared to a national average of less than 2%. This presentation will describe strategies and lessons learned.
Learning Objectives: Participants will learn about practical strategies for integrating breast feeding into child survival programs in the developing world and have the opportunity to discuss how these strategies could be incorporated into their own program.
Keywords: Breast Feeding, Child Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.