Stress on mother's milk for infants
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, July 31
The World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from August 1 to 7 with a new theme to mobilise work on breast feeding throughout the country. The theme for this year is Exclusive Breastfeeding : the gold standard — safe, sound and sustainable.

The Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BNI), the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) and advocates and activists working on the promotion of breastfeeding believe that exclusive breast feeding is the safe, sound and sustainable way to feed an infant for the first six months of his/her life. After six months also, it should continue for two years or beyond along with adequate home-made complementary feeding. Breast milk contains a range of anti-infective and other protective factors that make breast milk the safest food for a baby. It makes it nutritionally the soundest for a baby and also it is economical and natural way to feed infants.

As many as 10.8 million children under five die in the world annually and out of these, 2.4 million die in India. According to the WHO/UNICEF Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding, two-thirds of these deaths occur during the first-year and are related to inappropriate infant feeding. Out of these, 13-15 per cent of lives can be saved universally if it was 90 per cent of exclusive breastfeeding.

According to Dr Arun Gupta, national coordinator of the BPNI, “It is possible to achieve such high rates of exclusive breastfeeding, as there is evidence to support this. What we have to do is to make available the IYCF counselling as a “service” to all families/women through “skilled” workers.

CMCH to train Uttaranchal doctors
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, July 31
The Uttranchal Health System Development Project (UAHSDP) and Christian Medical College and Hospital here have joined hands to train specialists for the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Uttaranchal Pradesh.

An agreement in this regard was signed earlier in Dehra Dun by Dr Rakesh Kumar, Project-Director, the UAHSDP and Dr John Abraham, Medical Superintendent, CMCH.

Giving details of the project Dr Abraham said the CMCH was the only private institution recognised for this purpose by the UAHSDP. The others being All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh, and Government Medical College, Rohtak. The CMCH would impart training to medical specialists from Uttaranchal Pradesh in surgery and anesthesia.

Dr Abraham appreciated the government of Uttranchal Pradesh for initiating this programme to make the medicos aware of the breakthrough in medical field and said such training would provide a platform to both. He observed that the CMCH had always been an apex institute and the fountain head of innumerable students from India and abroad while.

A 14-day training programme, first in the series, was conducted at the CMCH on ‘Integrated Clinical Skill Development’. A total of nine trainees shared the knowledge about intricacies of surgery and anesthesia with consultants of the institution.

The trainees were later attached to various units on a rotation. They also attended emergency calls and accompanied patients to operating theatres. The trainees were made familiar with laparoscopic equipment, its handling and usage and were asked to spend some time with nurses to make themselves aware of stoma therapy as well as various products in use.