American Academy of Pediatrics, World Health Organization (WHO), and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) recommend exclusive breast-feeding for the first six months of an infant’s life and continuation for a year or more. However, data from World Health Organization (WHO) shows that over the period of 2007-2014, only 36% of infants 0-6 months were breastfed exclusively with 45% of annual child deaths are associated with under-nutrition. These statistics suggest the need to invest in breast-feeding promotion programming.

  Mothers and infants have been the traditional focus of breast-feeding promotion programs. A systematic review of the impact of male partner focused interventions on breast-feeding initiation, exclusivity, and continuation found that only 13 out of 535 breast-feeding promotion studies reported on male partner-focused interventions. However, current literature on breast-feeding promotion indicates that male engagement in promoting and supporting exclusive breast-feeding has a significant impact on the rates of breast-feeding initiation and continuation by the mother.

  Current breast-feeding promotion policies and programing must leverage this potential to create interventions that focus on increasing male knowledge, positive attitudes, behavior adoption and change, to promote best practices that enhance breast-feeding initiation, exclusivity and continuation outcomes. A thorough examination of existing breast-feeding promotion interventions suggests that an employer sponsored male-focused lactation program at workplace provides a sustainable way of increasing breast-feeding initiation, exclusivity, and continuation rates because of its focus on breast-feeding education and support services. Employers must ensure that these male oriented breast-feeding support programs are tailored to the needs and availabilities of its male employees. While this commentary highly recommends that current breast-feeding policies incorporate male focused workplace lactation programs as a way to promote rates of breast-feeding initiation, exclusivity, and continuation, further research and piloting, using controlled designs and consistent outcome indicators, is needed to develop a complete understanding of the effect of employer sponsored male focused lactation programs at workplace on engaging men in promoting rates of breast-feeding initiation, exclusivity and continuation.

Keywords: Breast-Feeding Promotion Programs; Employer Sponsored Male Focused Lactation Programs At Workplace

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Citation

Citation: Marisha Kashyap. “Male-Focused Breast-Feeding Promotion Programs: A New Route for Child Survival Programming Worldwide”. Acta Scientific Paediatrics 3.2 (2020): 26-29.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Marisha Kashyap. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.