Research by Philips Africa Reveals the Causes of Low Rates of Breastfeeding in Urban Africa

Philips Africa has unveiled the results of its latest research focused on supporting new mums in their breastfeeding journey, to mark World Breastfeeding Week ( 1-7 August 2015). 

Recent research in Africa, has found that under five children who are breastfed have a 14 times greater chance of survival, and any increase in intensity or duration of breastfeeding can help.

About 106,000 and 62,000 children died in Kenya and Ghana respectively from predominantly pneumonia and diarrhea in year 2013.

Breastfed babies have been said to be 15 times less likely to die from pneumonia and 11 times less likely to die from diarrhea.

In a bid to support the UN’s Every Woman Every Child initiative, Philips and Dr. Monk carried out a research in October 2014 to uncover the barriers to breastfeeding that urban working mothers in Accra Ghana and Nairobi Kenya face. 

This research involved 400+ working mothers with children under two years of age, through personal interviews, focus groups and surveys. 
The mothers chosen represented three distinct socio-economic groups: 
-Base of the Pyramid
-Floating Class 
-and the Middle Class.

Research findings revealed a deeply felt responsibility toward the health of the baby, tempered with the realities of urban African life.

Findings also showed that 52% of the mothers surveyed know that breastfeeding is the right thing to do, yet find it difficult to balance work and motherhood in busy African cities. These women have to return to work within three months of delivery, hence making breastfeeding difficult and complicated.

Also contributing to the low breastfeeding rates in urban Africa settings is the pressure of having to work many hours so as to make ends meet, coupled with the stress of day to day life, as well as the lack of space to express milk in the workplace.

Furthermore, even though 69% of the women surveyed are aware of the importance of expressing breast milk when unable to breastfeed directly, the main stumbling blocks to attaining this included 

lack of space to express comfortably, 

lack of access to technology like breast pumps, cooling and sterilization equipment and advice and coaching on the correct techniques to breastfeed while enabling comfort and ease for both infant and mother.

Summarily barriers to breastfeeding are social, economic, cultural and political and opportunities to lower these barriers are expected from joint efforts by industry, government, and civil society.

In the words of Dr. Maarten van Herpen, Head of the Philips Africa Innovation Hub:

“No mother should need to choose between earning a living, and giving their child the health benefits that only breastfeeding can provide,”  

“At Philips, we have started to develop several innovative ideas that were inspired by the findings in this report. Hopefully, these innovations will prove effective to address some of the challenges to breastfeeding faced by mothers.”