安らぎと教育の場として。3x6mの授乳室をラオスの病院に作りたい！

We need a breastfeeding room!

Because...

• Mothers and babies in extraordinary circumstances need a safe place to breastfeed.
• Making better use of breastfeeding time can save lives.
• As a teaching hospital, we want to create a model environment in Laos.

Here are the details:

Lao Friends Hospital for Children (LFHC) is full of mothers who breastfeed their babies. This not only includes the mothers of hospitalized patients, but also those who come to the outpatient clinic. These mothers are now feeding their babies in common areas and public spaces, and this is a common sight around Laos, not only in hospitals. It was surely the same in Japan in the past.

When I saw this scene, I thought, "This is a natural way of raising children. It's a part of Lao culture.” I didn't consider it a problem. However, when the staff and mothers told me that they did not necessarily feel comfortable in this situation, I realized that I had made this selfish assumption as a foreigner. For people whose lives are based in the village, even coming to a town with a hospital is a big decision. Of course, in village life, breastfeeding happens everywhere and may be the norm, but being in this unusual hospital environment is fraught with tension and anxiety.

Whether breastfeeding or formula feeding, this act of bonding is very important for forming the attachment between parent and child, and the time spent relaxing during feeding fosters physical and mental wellbeing. In the hospital, the breastfeeding room is not only used for feeding, but also as a place for pumping. If a hospitalized patient is unable to take milk by mouth for various reasons, milk is fed through a nasal tube. If the mother's breast milk is used, the mother needs to use a pumping machine and put breast milk into a container, all the while worrying about her sick baby and hoping that they will get well soon. I wonder if we can provide a little more comfort for those mothers.

The breastfeeding room is also a good place to educate mothers and families because they stay in the room for a certain amount of time, either pumping or nursing. While nursing, they can learn about breastfeeding and weaning in the near future, and talk about growth and development, which is highly effective for education. In Japan, there are many opportunities for education such as antenatal and infant checkups. However, here in Laos, the percentage of pregnant women who have never been to antenatal checkups is 6% in urban areas and 22.4% in rural areas, despite the government’s encouragement of various measures to increase these figures (Lao Social Indicator survey II 2017). Even in rural areas, there is a big difference between areas with roads and areas without roads, 19.5% and 36.3% respectively, with the highest percentage more than 46%. For reference, I looked up the rate of antenatal checkups in Japan. It was hard to find, but what I finally found was that Osaka’s rate of unattended checkups in 2019 was 0.02% (https://www.pref.osaka.lg.jp/kenkozukuri/boshi/mijyusin.html), much lower than Laos’.

In Laos, there are areas where medical personnel visit villages for vaccinations after childbirth, but families are sometimes absent from their house during the farming season, so the chances of getting information are further reduced. As a result, there is a delay in recognizing problems in growth and development. We have talked about malnutrition in many places, and it is not uncommon for severe malnutrition to be fatal. I sometimes think that if they had the chance to learn about these possibilities early on, we could have saved many lives. A breastfeeding room is also a place where we can provide a lot of information that people should know, such as family planning and vaccinations, and a place where we can answer questions about what they want, and a place where we can exchange information about what other mothers are doing. The room we want to build is a small room of 3 x 6 meters. I am reminded that there is a lot of potential in this small room.

To provide good education to the patients, we need skilled people. As a teaching hospital, Lao Friends Hospital for Children is not only curing diseases, but also developing human resources to create a standard of medical care that takes root nationally. Our goal is to develop medical personnel who can provide "compassionate care" (high quality medical care with heart and soul). To become a model hospital in Laos, we need to change the perception of hospital facilities from just a place to treat illnesses to a place for healthy growth and healing for families.

With this end in mind, we have always wanted to have a breastfeeding room, but our priority in the hospital is the treatment of children within a fixed budget. With the increasing number of patients coming to the hospital every year, the various conditions of patients, and the COVID-19 pandemic that started last year, we have been putting off building a breastfeeding room. To avoid such frustration, we included a breastfeeding room in the design of the newborn room that was built 2 years ago by renovating an old ward. However, due to its structure, the newborn room is located in a separate building and the space is too small for other inpatients.

We would like to extend the existing space near the inpatient ward just a little bit and equip it to create a small breastfeeding room with great potential! Your help would be greatly appreciated!