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conferenceseries
.com
Volume 04
Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases & Practice
ISSN: 2476-213X
Rare Diseases Congress 2019
June 17-18, 2019
June 17-18, 2019 | Berlin, Germany
9
th
World Congress on
Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs
Breast-milk deprivation and its effect in early infancy in rural coastal West Bengal
Dilip Kumar Mukherjee
Vivekananda Institute of Medical Sciences under West Bengal Health University, India
T
his study was conducted in a Pediatric Clinic at Kakdwip, the southernmost part of southwest coastal Sundarbans,
near Bay of Bengal. The main source of income is from agriculture. Majority are day-laborers while the sizeable
portion of people in general among the working class is poor. Environmental sanitation is not satisfactory. The 65%
are Hindus & 35% are Muslim. While conducting the clinic, it was observed that some infants often came with florid
case of malnutrition-quite early in age. On enquiry it was revealed that in most of these cases, the infant were denied
of breast milk and was fed with candy water instead. This evoked us to study and investigate the cases and this forms
the bases of this present presentation. Frank PEM can occur in early infancy (a majority occurred within 4-12 weeks
of age). This is due to denying the breast milk to the newborn and resulting in poor performance of breast milk
by the mother. The reasons for not giving breast milk were-inadequate breast milk, acidity of the mother, death of
the previous child in early infancy and having ‘breast milk diarrhea’. The majority incidences were on primi-para
mother (53.33%) and in mothers whose age is less than 20. This is a very significant and alarming observation. These
mothers who have no knowledge about infant feeding can be easily swayed and dictated by the advice of people
around who advise them to stop breast milk and to start candy water, sago or very diluted formula feeds instead and
thus gradually all these ultimately resulted in PEM. Thus the teenaged mothers who are physically, mentally, socially
and psychologically are not competent to take individual charge of the baby are the victims. Does it signal us to raise
the marriage age to 21 years at least so that the mothers become more mature, independent and capable? This study
reflects the vital importance of breast milk in the feeding of newborn and early infancy and also the lack of health
education of the poor teenaged mothers in rural setup.
Recent Publications
1. Ashok K Patwari, Sanjay Kumar and Jennifer Beard (2015) Undernutrition among infants less than 6 months of
age: an underestimated public health problem in India. Maternal and Child Nutrition 11(1):119-126.
2. MM Islam, Y Arafat, NConnell,
et.al., (2018) Severe malnutrition in infants aged <6 months-Outcomes and risk
factors in Bangladesh: A prospective cohort study. Maternal and Child Nutrition. e12642.
Dilip Kumar Mukherjee, J Clin Infect Dis Pract 2019, Volume 04