Mothers supporting mothers through Mercy Corps

Our work to build healthy communities, families and individuals is at the heart of Mercy Corps\' vision for social change. By partnering with a range of partners, from village health committees to government agencies, we help build the means to improve maternal, newborn and child health, ensure proper nutrition and combat infectious diseases. When my first daughter was born, none of my closest friends had children and I was living far from my mother and grandmothers. I felt alone with my questions and concerns about sleep, diapers and breast feeding so I joined a local mother’s group. With our babies fanned out in a circle in front of us, we sat on the floor and spoke to one another about our fears and joys and most importantly, we shared experiences and information about how to feed and nurture our babies. I was recently reminded of how empowering and comforting being part of such a group can be when I visited a Mother’s Support Group meeting in West Jakarta. The group was led by local government and community representatives with Mercy Corps staff from the current Child Survival program there to provide technical assistance on matters of nutrition and health. Some of the babies and mothers who attended the first Mother\'s Support Group in Jakarta\'s Cengkareng Barat neighborhood. Healthy Start program, was operated in North Jakarta. It is a four-year program focused on increasing community knowledge and acceptance around exclusive breastfeeding as the best way to nourish an infant, as well as establishing a replicable support model for urban communities. When my first daughter was born, none of my closest friends had children and I was living far from my mother and grandmothers. I felt alone with my questions and concerns about sleep, diapers and breast feeding so I joined a local mother’s group. With our babies fanned out in a circle in front of us, we sat on the floor and spoke to one another about our fears and joys and most importantly, we shared experiences and information about how to feed and nurture our babies. I was recently reminded of how empowering and comforting being part of such a group can be when I visited a Mother’s Support Group meeting in West Jakarta. The group was led by local government and community representatives with Mercy Corps staff from the current Child Survival program there to provide technical assistance on matters of nutrition and health. This Mother’s Support Group was the first to be held in Cengkareng Barat kelhuran (or sub-district) and was modeled on groups established by Mercy Corps’ previous Child Survival: In our current follow-on program, we\'re working in West Jakarta to improve the quality and utilization of health and nutrition services for women who are preparing to conceive, are pregnant or lactating — as well as for their children up to six months of age. Statistics on child and maternal health in Jakarta’s poorest neighborhoods are troubling, and Indonesia as a whole is seeing rapidly declining rates of early and exclusive breastfeeding. In Jakarta, only 40.5 percent of newborns are breastfed within one hour of birth with an average duration of 18 days. These low rates contribute to infant mortality due to poor nutrition and a high incidence of diarrhea and infections. - The factors contributing to low breastfeeding rates are many: Culturally, many Indonesian women believe that their breast milk is not sufficient to feed their babies. When a baby cries, the mothers are told — often by older women in the community — that the baby is hungry and needs to be given solid food or formula. And so this line of thought is passed from one generation to the next. - The need to regulate formula industry advertisements In addition, formula companies have intensively marketed their products to the urban poor, primarily through close professional and financial relationships with the health facilities where many of these babies are born. Again, the women are told that formula is superior to breast milk and, wanting what’s best for their children, the mothers comply. The move toward using formula can cause severe economic hardship for poor Indonesian families so Mercy Corps actively engaged Indonesian policy makers to regulate the formula industry. In August of last year, the Minister of Health announced legislative efforts to limit the ability of formula manufacturers to advertise their product — a significant policy change. Because of the misinformation Indonesian mothers receive regarding breastfeeding, these Mother’s Support Groups send a strong message to the women that ‘breastfeeding is best.’ The facilitator of the meeting I attended spoke of her own experience breastfeeding her children and of the health and economic benefits of breast milk. Though many of the mothers present fed their children formula (either exclusively or supplementally), they seemed to understand and accept the messages quickly. They spoke about the conflicting information they received from both their elders and birth attendants, and I heard the familiar sound of doubt and concern in their voices — the very sound I’d heard in my own voice as a new mother with so little experience and so much responsibility. But the Mercy Corps staff, along with the local facilitators, were able to provide sound information on nutrition and other benefits of breast milk so that by meeting’s end, all the mothers had enthusiastically embraced the commitment to breastfeed their babies. Fourteen years ago, my mother’s group gave me the information and support I needed to nourish my baby naturally and to trust my instincts as a mother. I felt so honored to once again be part of such an empowering circle of women.