The IBFAN website says a baby dies every 30 seconds because of unsafe bottle feeding.

Baby Bottle disease is the name given to the diarrhoea, dehydration and malnutrition which these babies suffer from as a result of unsafe bottle feeding.

In Africa most women live in poor resource settings where there is an overwhelming risk of the baby being fed with contaminated formula made up with contaminated water and unsterilised bottles. This inevitably leads to  infections such diarrhoea and pneumonia and very high rates of infant mortality.

Just to give you some figures from South Africa:
 Infant mortality rate is  56/1000 live births , 60% of these deaths are preventable
 75,000 die every year before the age of 5 years- major killers HIV/AIDS and infections
One third of these children are severely malnourished & 60% underweight for their age.

Are bottles like knives in our country? An unequivocal YES!

Prof Coovadia  who has done so much research in this area states that studies in Uganda, Tanzania and Durban, South Africa show that bottle feeding results in higher cases of infant mortality than those exclusively breastfed, even if the mother is HIV pos.  Where water is unsafe babies are 25 times more likely to die if they are bottle fed.  This danger also exist in developed countries like the UK where  a baby is 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with diarrhoea.

If we could encourage more Mothers to breastfeed in our country we could prevent so many unnecessary deaths and so much unnecessary suffering. Each baby is so precious we need to save each one we can.

Penny Reimers
IBCLC
Coordinator iThemba Lethu Breastmilk Bank
South Africa

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