IMSS promotes breastfeeding as a public health strategy to save lives and prevent infections and diseases / @Tu_IMSS >>>

#IMSS.- The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) reaffirms its commitment to ensuring adequate protection for mothers and babies by promoting exclusive breastfeeding until six months of age and complementary breastfeeding until two years of age or older, as a public health strategy that saves lives and prevents infections and diseases in the general population.

On this World Breastfeeding Protection Day, Dr. Elvira Elvia Escobar Beristain, Medical Programs Coordinator at the Directorate of Medical Benefits (DPM), emphasized that breast milk is the best and only food a mother can offer her child as soon as they are born, providing the nutrients necessary for proper growth and development.

She emphasized that breastfeeding is considered one of the strategies for reducing infant morbidity and mortality worldwide and nationally; it is the means to provide an ideal food for healthy growth and development, with important repercussions on the health of both the mother and the newborn.

She indicated that the benefits for the mother include the prevention of breast and ovarian cancer, postpartum depression, anemia, diabetes, hypertension, and osteoporosis, while for the newborn, there is a lower incidence of diarrhea, respiratory tract infections, diabetes mellitus, lymphoma, leukemia, overweight and obesity, high blood pressure in later stages, hypercholesterolemia and asthma, allergies, among others, as well as improved intellectual development.

“Breastfeeding forges a deep emotional bond between mother and child, promoting attachment and emotional well-being for both. This process, which includes skin-to-skin contact, eye-to-eye interaction, and verbal communication, stimulates the production of hormones such as oxytocin, known as the love hormone, which strengthens the bonding relationship and increases milk production,” she emphasized.

The specialist explained that Social Security has strategies such as AMIIMSS, a comprehensive maternal care model that focuses on continuous support throughout the reproductive process for women and their families, as well as strengthening breastfeeding.

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