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Vodafone Healthline, the flagship Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme of telecom giant Vodafone that seeks to educate Ghanaians on pertinent health-related issues and encourage healthy lifestyle practices, has educated lactating/breastfeeding mothers on staying safe amid COVID19.
In its ninth season, the programme, this season, boasts of health professionals such as Dr. Aba Folson Dr. Joseph Oliver-Commey, Dr. Francis Addai and Dr. Kwekuma Yalley.
On the first episode, the doctors educated the public on the importance of exercising regularly, especially lactating mothers on simple and stress-free exercises that can help them maintain their shape without endangering their internal organs.
Dr. Aba Folson, Senior Physician/Cardiologist, emphasized that it is not true that exercising dehydrates lactating mothers and reduces flow of breast milk. Indicating that exercising soon after birth, burns energy and do not accumulate a lot of calories which is good for control of weight as sugar levels and other conditions are put in check.
However, she cautioned that over exercising at that time may affect the mother though it does not affect the baby’s nutrition and quality of breast milk. Adding that breastfeeding should be done on demand and must not be used as a pacifier when the baby is crying.
“Regular exercise, balanced dieting, drinking enough water and having enough sleep are important for lactating mothers in staying healthy amid COVID-19. When you breastfeed regularly it also helps to control the mother’s weight and mothers must always note that at any point in time that they are breastfeeding they should ensure that the baby sucks on both breast,” she said.
Dr. Joseph Oliver-Commey, Infectious Disease Specialist Member, touching on the safety of children especially babies in this era of COVID-19, he revealed that it was initially believed that the virus could not affect children because they have stronger immune systems that cannot be permeated by the virus but it has been detected now that children or babies are of course not experiencing the effect of the virus but they do get the virus and are carriers of the virus.
“Children or babies are what we refer to as pre-symptoms or asymptomatic, they do not show any symptom of the virus but are the fastest spreaders of the virus,” he said.
Dr. Kwekuma Yalley, General Practitioner, on his turn, likened babies to new vehicles and explained that as new cars hardly breakdown or need body works, same relates to children, so they do get the virus but may not need special treatment, however ones you get into contact with them you are at a higher rate of being infected.
Dr. Francis Addai, Family Physician and Diabetologist, indicated that for clinical recoveries it takes about six weeks for a person affected with COVID-19 to recover, but mild cases take about two weeks to heal.
He added that a study has shown that it is possible for people to get the coronavirus again after recovery because it has been identified that most of the symptomatic cases do lose their antibodies completely few weeks after recovery hence the possibility to be infected again in case of contact with an infected person.
Healthline has over the past eight years contributed significantly to promoting a healthy society as experts from various medical fields take turns to educate viewers and debunk health myths.
By Samuel Boadi