- During 2022, Social Security carried out more than 10 million interventions to improve the supervision of breastfeeding in the First and Second level of care.
- The lactary is the first of the six that the IMSS will install in Mexico City and will later enable more in the rest of the country.
- The Breastfeeding Room is equipped with individual chairs and tables, a register shelf, sink with sink and cabinet, soap and towel dispenser.
Regarding the commemoration of International Women’s Day, the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) released some welcome news. It’s about the inauguration of the first Breastfeeding Room in one of its hospitals. The goal is for this space to be used by both health workers and beneficiaries.
This unique place is inside the hospital located in Durango 323, in the Roma Norte neighborhood of the country’s capital. It is the first of six that will be installed in Mexico City in the following months. This guarantees the right to have a comfortable, clean and dignified space for the extraction of breast milk for the benefit of their health and that of their babies.
General characteristics of the Breastfeeding Room
The lactation room is equipped with individual chairs and tables, a register shelf, a sink with a sink and furniture, a soap and towel dispenser. It also has a stainless steel refrigerator with an energy saving system, a bottled water dispenser, a screen to project educational videos on breastfeeding, among others.
Dr. Célida Duque Molina, director of Medical Benefits, stressed that breastfeeding is the best gift that a woman can give her baby. The reason is because it improves immunity, allows better neurological development and strengthens the mother-child bond. It also helps to lose weight, prevents diseases such as breast and cervical cancer, and reduces the risk of childhood obesity.
He reported that last year more than 10 million interventions were carried out at the IMSS to improve training, evaluation and supervision of breastfeeding in the first and second level of care.
Reverse low rates of breastfeeding in Mexico
She noted that, as of the end of 2021, only 15 percent of children were exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of age. To change this scenario, programs have been created such as the Comprehensive Maternal Care Model (AMIIMSS), which establishes a decalogue of health for girls up to adolescence, prevention of adolescent pregnancy, control and monitoring of pregnancy, strengthening of delivery care and care humanized in the rooms.
“With this collaborative, institutional work, today we have a unique scenario in Social Security. We have 84 pre-work rooms, we began to create them in March of last year. What do we do? We have a team of experts led by nurses, doctors, where we have the accompaniment of the woman who is in labor and where we also now allow access to the family member that she decides. This has allowed more than 10,000 women to have had a natural birth instead of a cesarean section.
For her part, teacher Patricia Pérez de los Ríos, head of the Integrity and Transparency Unit, said that although motherhood is a personal decision, it is also a matter of exercising rights. The development of women can be in harmony with upbringing in an environment of balance, life and work, in adequate conditions in the workplace.
“Having breastfeeding spaces guarantees the rights to health, food, and work and allows this act of love that strengthens emotional ties and identity with the children to be a bond that lasts permanently in the lives of the children.” citizens that we are forming. That is why these spaces change lives”.
In her participation, Marcela Velázquez Bolio, head of the IMSS Human Rights Unit, pointed out that the IMSS has a great responsibility for the protection of human rights and gender equality.
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