Infant and Young Child Feeding In Emergencies
From bushfires to earthquakes, Mother Nature is a powerful woman! But mankind can also create disruptions through conflict and infrastructure breakdowns.
Families with infants and young children are often overlooked in emergency preparedness around the world but this is changing. The needs of those who are exclusively or partially milk-fed needs to be considered when evacuation centres and refuges are rolled out.
This is why parents need to be prepared for natural or societal disasters, whether their infant is breastfed, breastmilk or formula fed.
Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E)
Advocacy groups around the world are highlighting the need for services and resources for families who face being away from their home for unknown periods and often with little notice.
Clean, safe and private spaces for parents to breastfeed, express breastmilk and prepare feeds for babies are not always considered in planning. Safe sleep spaces for infants, bed-sharing families and mobile toddlers can be limited or non-existent. Consumables like nappies, wipes and appropriate infant and toddler foods might not immediately be provided. Even resources for safely rescue adults with babes in arms are limited.
Planning at local, state and national government levels need to be informed about the needs of parents, infants and young children. Thankfully resources are now available in many parts of the world and awareness is progressing in others.
Despite the comfortable bubble we believe we live in, catastrophes are not limited to places far from home. We all need to expect the unexpected.
Australia
Bushfires, floods and cyclones are the most common natural disasters in Australia. Climate change has already led to more extreme fire and flooding events and it is no longer just a threat to isolated or rural communities. The Black Summer bushfires of 2019/20 decimated communities just weeks before the pandemic hit. Major flooding events and cyclones also impacted parts of the country , sometimes repeatedly.
Despite extensive enquiries into bushfire events like the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009, support for parents with infants had not improved by the Black Summer fires a decade later. Although support for people evacuating with pets had been increased.
The Babies and Young Children in the Black Summer (BiBS) Study is a collaboration between the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) and Western Sydney University. ABA is Australia’s peak breastfeeding information and support service and a critical part of Australia’s public health infrastructure.
During the Black Summer Bushfires, ABA volunteers provided support to mothers via the National Breastfeeding Helpline and, for some, in person. Through the work of their volunteers, ABA has long been aware of the vulnerable position of infants and very young children and their families during and after disasters, and the need for better support for them. The BiBS Study is part of ABA’s Community Protection for Infants and Young Children in Bushfire Emergencies Project, which is based in Eurobodalla Shire on the NSW South Coast. The project aims to increase community resilience to disasters through facilitating better planning and preparedness to meet the needs of very young children and their parents and caregivers in emergencies.
Going into the research the ABA team was aware that Australia lacked proper emergency planning to meet the needs of families with very young children, however the BiBS Study confirmed the gap in disaster support for parents with babies and toddlers across emergency preparedness, emergency response and disaster recovery, ABA’s Breastfeeding Information and Research Manager, Naomi Hull said.
“We found that resources to support families with very young children to prepare for evacuation were lacking and that unprepared parents evacuated later than they wanted to because of the time it took to gather items for their child,” she added.
“Women were disproportionately impacted. Mothers often evacuated with their babies and toddlers on their own to large evacuation centres where they struggled to care for their children amongst the overcrowding, strangers and animals. Resources for caring for very young children in evacuation venues were often absent.”
“There was a general expectation that parents would look after their children,” ABA’s lead researcher for the study and WSU academic, Dr Karleen Gribble, explained, “(and while) It is true that parents are very motivated to protect their children…this does not mean that they did not need help.”
For some mothers the focus on keeping children safe meant they did not eat or drink properly themselves, and two of the five pregnant women who were interviewed said they fainted while queuing during the bushfires.
A range of resources have now been developed for families, emergency responders and community services.
Stranded
Holiday makers in Mallacoota were totally unprepared to be trapped between raging bushfires and the ocean until they could be rescued by air and sea.
The need to evacuate infants and young children from fire and floods identified another challenge: when armed forces and rescue services do not have appropriate equipment.
In Mallacoota, “… it was explained that for children under school age, the elderly and the frail, it was preferable to move them by air, as boarding a Naval vessel may require climbing up a short rope and ladder,” . While over a 1000 people - plus pets - were successfully evacuated by sea on Friday afternoon, those classed as “vulnerable” had to remain until conditions allowed aircraft to safely land on Saturday. Both a Chinook helicopter and RAAF Spartan military transport aircraft were unable to land at Mallacoota airport before then.
In floods, buoyancy devices for infants are not standard issue and evacuation by boat puts babies at further risk.
Globally
While the emergencies can be vastly different depending on where we live, the needs of mothers and infants are very much the same. Hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, volcanos and storms can all leave families without shelter or possessions when nature simply wipes them away. War and political conflicts not only push people from their homes but leave them vulnerable to ongoing attack and loss.
Advocacy and support organisations around the world are taking action on Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies and raising awareness of the need for resources and information to be readily available when needed.
