Amarjeet Kaur has just delivered a baby girl in Amar Leela Hospital somewhere near Patiala and her engorged breast is secreting a yellow thick juice and seeing it the mother-in-law asked her to discard the witch's milk immediately.

In a village of Tawang District of Arunachal Pradesh, a newborn baby is fed the first feed with a drop of Bison milk believing that it would bring the strength of the nature.

An Adhivashi mother is feeding her just delivered baby inside a mosquito net in the thick jungle of Jharkhand. This was what the ANM told her: to exclusively breast feed the baby for at least 4 months before slowly introducing the solid diet.

In a busy Mumbai Mall a couple is searching a fancy feeding bottle and the various brands of infant foods-the in thing for a suckling baby in this busy world.

Three Members of parliament in the US Government has decided to breast feed during the Parliament session to promote breast feeding-a dying art and habit.

Breast feeding is an art and science interpreted and practiced in as many ways as we have names in the world. Unfolding the age-old myths surrounding breast feeding is a mammoth task and every parent understands the anxiety which starts the moment the child starts crying.

The gyan that the doctor or the nurse taught hurriedly after delivery (if at all) is soon forgotten and one reaches out for the bottle unable to wait for the breast milk to start flowing.

This is a drain-for the baby, for the mother and family and the nation as a whole. The lone fellow who benefits is the manufacturer of the artificial feed.

When to start breast feeding?

The experts say that breast feeding should be started as soon as possible-preferably within the first hour of normal delivery. Every secretion right from the initial yellow secretion should be given.

In fact this yellow secretion called colostrum is full of immunoglobulin (anti-bodies) to protect against microbes that the baby is likely to encounter. This is something like gathering ammunitions before going to war.

For a mother who has delivered by Caesarean Section she can be encouraged to start feeding the baby preferably within 24 hours. The breast feeding baby requires just breast milk and no supplement; not even water. Honey or bison milk etc is not at all required by the baby if you breast feed the baby.

Why breast feeding?

Breast feeding benefits are enumerable. This is something like health which we all take for granted until we are deprived of it one day when we fall sick.

The first and foremost benefit is that breast milk provides the right food at the right concentration of right ingredients at the right temperature--all customized for the growth of the baby.

No human technology has managed to manufacture the perfect human feed. The best we all can claim to achieve is a modified cow's milk preparation, of course, all packed and labeled with good capturing names and sale promotion through surrogate advertising. (Luckily not legally allowed in India, we don't see such an ad in those break ke baad).

Breast feeding protects against several infections including diarrhea and respiratory infections and saves lives. It also prevent against allergic disorders. More than everything else it provides a time and opportunity for emotional bonding between the mother and the child.

Breast feeding also provides some benefits to the mother. It provides a strong contraceptive effect for the mother in the first 4-6 months after delivery. Maternal benefits include earlier termination of post-partum bleeding and protective effect against breast and ovarian cancer.

Promoting breast feeding also helps in nation building. Breast feeding compared to artificial feeding is very economical. In developing countries, the average cost of feeding a 6 month old infant for one month on infant formula may even be equal to the average monthly per capita income.

In fact, the cost of commercial breast milk substitutes is unaffordable for majority of families in the developing world:

• In Uganda, the average annual cost of formula for one child is more than the average annual income of a village family.
• In Peru, the cost of a year's worth of breast milk substitutes exceeds the household income of more than half of the country's population
• In Vietnam, the cost of a year's supply of breast milk substitutes is $ 257-compared to the country's per capita gross national product (GNP) of $320.