This celebration is designed to spread awareness about breastfeeding and motivate the Community Approach in support of breastfeeding, as well as explaining the hazards of bottle-feeding and benefits of breastfeeding. In these seminars / activities, the main objective was to communicate the message that breastfeeding is a natural means of feeding your child, a gift from God.

Nursing students did a skit on August 3rd to raise awareness that breastfeeding is important to mothers. The students performed a role play on the topic of “importance of breastfeeding” on the Antenatal and Postnatal wards at VMCH & RI. Mothers were motivated by the performance. Following the awareness skit, we also conducted a rangoli competition in our premises, regarding the theme of breastfeeding. Nurses from pediatric wards, neonatal & pediatric intensive care units, and OBG competed in the competition. The nurses had a golden opportunity to make the celebration more colorful. Psychiatrist Professor Dr Rena Rosalind and Principal of Nursing College Dr Revathi evaluated the competition. They appraised each Rangoli and also recognized the team PICU as winners. As a part of our outreach activity, an online session was conducted for the students of Lady Doak College, Madurai. Our pediatricians, Dr Lakshmi Durga and Dr Nirosha addressed the students regarding the importance and benefits of breastfeeding.

On day 4, a senior lactation consultant Dr Revathi, from Madurai conducted a counseling session for postnatal mothers and their families. During her session, she counseled the moms about the different positions to breastfeed, correct techniques for latching and attachment of baby to breast. She also had a Q&A session with all participants and also gave health education to the mothers regarding the importance of breast feeding and how to support the breast fed mothers in the family, society etc. More than 30 moms and their families visited and benefited from this counseling session. The overall activity or celebration is to promote breastfeeding awareness to the public. This year the theme is “protect Breastfeeding: A shared responsibility”. We will be back with more activities and sessions in the coming days.