The Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) has received a certificate from the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) for its effective mobilization during the World Breastfeeding Week 2021.

PHCC expressed its pleasure for receiving the certificate for the activities it organized during the World Breastfeeding Week in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), and in coordination with WABA for two consecutive years.

WABA is a global network of individuals and organizations dedicated to the protection, promotion, and support of breastfeeding worldwide. It coordinates the global World Breastfeeding Week campaign that aims to inform, anchor, engage and galvanize action on breastfeeding and related issues.

Dr. Sadriya Mohammad Al Kohji, Head of Healthy Children and Adolescents in the National Health Strategy of the MoPH and Assistant Medical Director for Child and Adolescent Health at PHCC, said that the campaign, launched this year under the slogan ‘Protecting Breastfeeding: A Shared Responsibility’, focused on achieving its goals by intensifying the publication of awareness materials on communication channels due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She noted that the campaign included filming awareness videos in Qatari dialect that addressed misconceptions about breastfeeding, with the participation of influential people in the community, in addition to dedicating an awareness video for doctors to focus on the importance of breastfeeding.

To heighten community awareness of the significance of breastfeeding, awareness sessions about breastfeeding were conducted on PHCC Instagram account, as well as presenting the slogan of this year on all PHCC screens and devices.

The world is looking back to gauge the success of efforts to support all women to optimally feed and care for their infants and young children, as well as to plan what more can be done.

Breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival. Together with complementary feeding, it can save about a million child every year. For that reason, PHCC endeavor to distribute educational and guidance materials to mothers in health centers and upload them on PHCC website for easy access.

The staff clinic also focused on supporting working mothers by providing advice, guidance, and educational materials on breastfeeding, in addition to publishing breastfeeding-awareness press releases in the local newspapers to cover the World Breastfeeding Week.

Taking cultural sensitivities into account, doctors at health centers and the staff clinic provided mothers with breastfeeding covers, to support and protect the practice of breastfeeding and build a healthy generation in the society.