Posted Aug 31, 2010
Almost 95 percent of women who use Hidalgo and Starr County government subsidized clinics for Women, Infants and Children breastfeed their newborns for up to two months after delivery.
That number hovers closer to 75 percent for the rest of the state. But across Texas, those numbers begin to drop off after those first eight weeks, WIC says.
“Breastfeeding is essential for good nutrition throughout our lives,” said Hidalgo County WIC Director Norma Longoria. “It has an effect on growth and development, creating a close emotional bond between mother and child and even on obesity.
“Texas is fighting obesity and especially in the Valley where our culture and diet doesn’t always lead us to make the right food choices, breastfeeding is one positive way to curb this trend.”
Breastfeeding also helps reduce allergies and digestive problems and reinforces a baby’s immune system, breastfeeding advocates say.
Ideally, babies are breastfed for their first year.
But women stop breastfeeding for a variety of reasons, Longoria said. Sometimes they’re discouraged by lack of support of family members or they go back to work.
“Sometimes women feel uncomfortable, they do not know if they can breastfeed in an establishment,” said Longoria.
WIC is visiting doctors’ offices to teach women the benefits of breastfeeding and encouraging businesses to become breastfeeding-friendly establishments during August, the World Breastfeeding Month.
“We ask the owners of the businesses if they would support women breastfeeding, discreetly of course,” said Veronica Riojas, Nutritionist and Breastfeeding Coordinator for Hidalgo County WIC. “If they say they do, we give them a decal to place on their front door identifying them as a breastfeeding-friendly establishments.”
Longoria, who breastfed her two children, acknowledges that the culture here is not prone to see women breastfeeding.
“They have an stigma against any exposure but, even if you look a commercial here on beers they have all this showing and in a provocative way,” she said. “(Breastfeeding) is not provocative. It’s that we have an ability to do (it to) make a difference in our baby’s life. Why shouldn’t a woman do it?” Martha L. Hernandez covers Mission, western Hidalgo County and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4846.
//> To see more of The Monitor, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http:/www.themonitor.com.
Copyright © 2010, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.