First Lady in Atteridgeville for launch of World Breastfeeding Awareness Week

Pretoria – If adults can eat anywhere and at any time they want, then mothers breastfeeding their children should not be expected to hide in corners either.

At the start of World Breastfeeding Awareness Week running from Thursday up until 7 August, Health Minister Dr. Bandile Masuku and the First Lady Dr. Tshepo Motsepe kicked off the day at the Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville.

But also to join in on Save the Children South Africa’s one-hundredth birthday celebrations.

This year’s theme: “Empowering Parents – Enabling Breastfeeding,” was according to Motsepe very important in order to create a positive support system for mothers in our communities.

Motsepe said even though work done by the 29 partners working towards the promotion of breastfeeding in the country had greatly improved things as recorded in 2017, a lot more still had to be done.

As a mother herself, Motsepe said she promoted strictly breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life and had personally breastfed her children until they were two years old.

“I only stopped breastfeeding one of my children earlier as she had teeth and was starting to bite me. I believe that being able to breastfeed them until that time gave them the best start to leading healthy lives.”

“I was fortunate enough and believe that communities, families, employees and society as a whole need to start supporting and encouraging mothers to breastfeed instead of jumping straight into formula or feeding children porridge.”