A letter from Cindy Morgan serving in Bangladesh
October 30, 2014 - Waiting Patiently in Expectation
Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk,
so that by it you may grow into salvation—
if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
I Peter 2:2, 3
Dear Friends and Family,
When Babu was born in the northwestern city of Rajshahi last October his grandparents, concerned about his crying and doubting the sufficiency of his mother’s early milk supply, decided to supplement his feedings with infant formula. On the third day, however, when her colostrum transitioned to an abundance of milk, Babu totally refused to nurse. Having become accustomed to the free flow of an artificial nipple, her son would no longer suckle at her breast.
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Third year nursing student, Rima, counsels a breastfeeding mother at Christian Mission Hospital in Rajshahi
After his birth in the back alley of a slum in the capital city of Dhaka, Abir's cries awakened not only his parents, but also his brother, aunt and grandmother—everyone sleeping in their one-room abode. Wanting more sleep, and presuming his cries meant that his mother’s milk supply wasn’t keeping up with his growing body’s demands, the family bought a can of infant formula to supplement his intake. Concerned that full-strength formula would be too strong for Abir’s young digestive tract, however, they diluted it to half-strength. Although everyone got more sleep, Abir failed to gain weight, and as he sucked more on the bottle and nursed less at his mother’s breasts, her body, sensing the reduced demand, began to produce less and less milk.
Although most mothers in Bangladesh breastfeed their children for two to three years, far fewer follow the recommendation to feed their children only breast milk for the first six months of life. Why is this such an important recommendation? As long as a mother is giving her child breast milk, you may wonder, why does it matter if he’s given a little something else now and then?
To introduce anything other than breast milk into a newborn’s delicate digestive system washes away the protective coating of colostrum that shields the intestinal lining from bacteria and antigens. Other forms of nourishment not only dilute the vital antibodies and leukocytes inherent to the living food of human milk, but also overload the immature kidneys and introduce allergens before the infant’s immune system is prepared to handle them. For these reasons and more, the simple act of exclusively breastfeeding infants for the first six months of life has the power to prevent 3 million infant deaths globally every year—that’s 8,000 infant lives that could be saved every day.
Not only are there huge health risks to infants who fail to exclusively breastfeed, but the economic implications are enormous as well. To feed an infant commercial formula for the first six months of life costs more than the entire six-month salary of a young Bangladeshi elementary schoolteacher or a recent nursing graduate serving in a mission hospital. When you then consider the daily wages of uneducated laborers working in rice fields or pulling rickshaws, it’s easy to see how financially devastating it would be for such a family to have to purchase milk substitutes. Hence, when the wife of such a laborer loses her milk supply due to receiving inaccurate breastfeeding advice and inadequate support, the family, unable to purchase infant formula, usually resorts to watered-down animal milk or thin gruels, which can lead to diarrhea, malnutrition, and death. In the developing world bottle-fed infants are 25 times more likely to die from diarrhea than are exclusively breastfed infants.
To address the pervasive and insidious nature of poor infant feeding practices in Bangladesh, the Church of Bangladesh’s Social Development Program (CBSDP) has decided to focus its efforts on the critical first thousand days of a child’s life, from conception until 2 years of age. Besides working to help prevent early marriage and teen pregnancies, CBSDP’s new five-year Community Health Program, to begin in 2015, will support women during pregnancy and provide them with the knowledge and confidence they will need to handle common problems that arise during breastfeeding, thereby enabling them to exclusively breastfeed successfully. The Church of Bangladesh already offers this kind of in-depth, proactive training to the students at its nursing schools in Rajshahi and Bollobhpur.
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Laura, in her 9th month of pregnancy, waiting patiently in expectation
My own daughter, Laura, is now expecting her first child—our first grandchild—and plans to breastfeed. Even after she goes back to work, she will assure that her son continues to receive only breast milk by expressing and storing it for him to have while she is away. I’ll be flying back to the States next week to be at her side as she negotiates those first few delicate hours and days of breastfeeding. Together we will wait patiently in expectation for the life-giving milk that is sure to come.
While some mothers do not have the option of breastfeeding, and others choose not to for important reasons of their own, the mother who breastfeeds offers herself as a living sacrifice. On the altar of love and devotion, a mother’s milk becomes the very flesh of a whole new being—just as a mother’s womb serves as such an altar during her nine months of pregnancy. The bond that forms as a mother draws her newborn to her breast and sees his hunger there sated is beyond compare.
I vividly remember one night many years ago while nursing Laura; tears began to stream down my cheeks as motherhood began opening for me a whole new window into understanding the nature of God. I saw that as I held Laura and yielded my body to be used to form every cell of her growing body, God, in all God’s tenderness, was holding and forming me. All I had to do was drink of God’s Spirit. Just as my daughter was totally and utterly dependent upon my milk for her growth, so too was I upon God’s. And, just as I took deep delight in being able to satisfy her hunger, so too, I realized, did God take pleasure in being the One who could satisfy my every longing.
Having savored the amazing experience of exclusively breastfeeding our three children, I am grateful for the opportunity to train health workers in Bangladesh to provide breastfeeding guidance and support, and thereby build confidence in new mothers across the country. By offering the right advice at the right time, Church of Bangladesh nurses are, and CBSDP field workers soon will be, empowering mothers to exclusively breastfeed in a country where the stakes of not doing so are extremely high.
When possible, I enjoy coupling training on breastfeeding with meditations on verses like the one at the top of this letter, inviting participants into a deeper awareness of the mystery and tenderness of God. This invitation to awaken to God’s profound and nurturing presence is not just for new mothers, but for all.
May each of us, wherever we are, do all we can to support the women in our lives who want to breastfeed their children; and may we all long for the pure, spiritual milk of God, so that by drinking it, we may grow into the fullness and likeness of Christ.
Having tasted that the Lord is good, nothing less will do.
With great joy,
Cindy
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 221
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