Registrar Cautions Against Bottle Feeding Of Babies

Dr Lawal Tahir, the Senior Registrar at the Department of Paediatrics, National Hospital, Abuja, has advised breast feeding mothers to desist from bottle feeding their babies.

Tahir told newsmen that the risk of contacting bacteria through feeding bottles was high in spite of sterilisation.

“There are a lot of health implications involved in the use of feeding bottles; the problem with using bottles is contamination.

“If you look at the rubber teat, you find it is usually sticky, when you expose it to high temperature that should ordinarily sterilise it, it becomes sticky, milk particles get attached to it and bacteria can grow on it,’’ he said.

He said a baby could also be choked while bottle feeding because of the air which comes in intermittently.

Tahir also observed that there were misconceptions of what exclusive breast feeding ought to be, noting that many mothers had the impression that it stopped at six months.

“ Exclusive breast feeding is an initiative where mothers are encouraged to exclusively breast feed their babies, especially in the first six months of the life.

“The idea is that if babies take breast milk over this period, they are expected to have adequate calories in the body, get anti-bodies that fight infections.

“ They are also not exposed to pathogens that would have been in food or drink.

“The misconception is that some mothers think after six months, they can stop breast feeding the child which is not the idea.

“After six months, a complimentary feed is added, which means the child should still be on breast milk.

“You are adding food just to complement the breast milk because at that point, the size of the baby would have increased, activities had also increased and the breast milk would not provide the required energy needed by the baby,’’ Tahir added.

He advised breast feeding mothers to wash their hands before feeding their babies to avoid transmitting diseases to the child.