Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is one of the most powerful interventions to reduce child deaths and promote cognitive development. In Kenya, less than half of infants are exclusively breastfed for 6 months. Women are faced with misinformation, a lack of social support and limited access to expert nutrition consultation. To address these issues, we will test three tools by combining them in an online support network - “Walezi Pamoja" (Nurturing Together) - for mothers in Africa's most internet-connected country.

Anne CC Lee and Mandy Brown Belfort of Brigham and Women's Hospital in the U.S. along with Stéphane Sizonenko and Petra Huppi of the University of Geneva in Switzerland will test whether lactoferrin, a breast milk nutrient, can promote growth and reduce injury in the developing infant brain. Of the 15 million annual preterm births, almost a million of the surviving babies have severe neurological defects such as cerebral palsy. However, there are limited treatments available. Breast milk has a positive effect on the infant brain, but the mechanisms for this are unclear.

Alain Labrique of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S. and Meghan Azad of the University of Manitoba in Canada will study the impact of prelacteals - fluids or solids given before breastfeeding is established - on the populations of bacteria in the newborn gut (the microbiome), and how it may affect development. Immediate and exclusive breastfeeding helps maintain healthy growth in infants and protects them against infections, which are also influenced by their gut microbiome.

Focusing on early and universal child development is potentially the most promising strategy to break the vicious intergenerational cycle of poverty that is perpetrating an increasingly inequitable and unjust world order. Dr. Vishwajeet Kumar and his team at Community Empowerment Lab will evaluate whether a simple package of essential newborn care practices, such as community-based skin-to-skin care, that is readily scalable and can be adopted by the poorest of families, can lead to improvements in long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) has been associated with better cognition in some developed countries. In this project scientists from Makerere University (Uganda) and Centre Muraz (Burkina Faso) will assess whether EBF promotion enhances human capital formation including cognitive function, mental and general health, among a cohort of 5-7 year old children.

The South African Vertical Transmission Study supported HIV-positive and HIV-negative women to exclusively breastfeed their infants in a rural area of South Africa where mixed breastfeeding (i.e. breastmilk and other fluids and solids) was the norm. We aim to investigate whether this early feeding intervention is associated with further benefits for children, in terms of development, health and school readiness.

Mothers working in Bangladesh garment factories will receive access to breast pumps and a low-cost way to extend the shelf life of expressed breast milk. The technique uses an alternative heating medium, minimizing the amount of water and energy normally needed for pasteurization but effectively killing bacteria and viruses while leaving nutrient content largely intact and extending shelf life.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, roughly 12 of every 100 children die before age five.  Exclusive breastfeeding for six months is an effective way to save many of those lives but only about one-third of babies in the region are exclusively breastfed and in Kenya's Kibera slums, where poverty forces mothers to resume work soon after delivery, the rate is 2%.  The Linda Kizazi project will foster a Baby-Friendly Community in Kibera, creating both a personal saving plan for mothers and links to breastfeeding-friendly ways to generate income in those crucial first six months of their baby's lif