A La Leche League Leader in Gabon, Africa
Donna M. Nance
Libreville, Gabon, Africa
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 37 No. 1, February-March 2001, p. 19-20
In February 2001, La
Leche League of Libreville, Gabon will celebrate its second birthday!
Who am I? What am I doing
in Gabon? I am an English-speaking American originally from Texas. I
have been married for eleven years to my brilliant husband, Weldon,
and we have a radiant five-year-old daughter, Olivia.
We have lived in Gabon now
for over eight years. We came to live here in the spring of 1992 on
what we thought at the time would be a maximum international assignment
of three years duration for my husband, who is employed by an American
oil exploration and production company. Changes over the years have
kept us here, but that is fine with me. I love living here.
I found and joined LLL in
the fall of 1995, when I gave birth to my daughter in Houston, Texas.
I became a Leader in October 1998, by working with Jacquie Nutt, a Leader
in Zimbabwe. We worked diligently together for about eighteen months
on my Leadership application via email as postal service here can be
unreliable. The process took that long because for one almost six-month
period, our Internet/email server did not work.
Where Is Gabon? What Is
It Like?
Gabon is located in the central
part of the West Coast of Africa and is about the same size as the state
of Colorado in the United States. The population of Gabon is very small
- less than one million people in the whole country. It is estimated
that nearly half of the population lives in the capital city, Libreville,
which is where I live. Many countries in Africa are plagued by war and
civil unrest, but we in Gabon are lucky. Gabon has lived under an umbrella
of peace and relative prosperity (by developing world standards) since
independence.
French is the official language
of Gabon. When I moved here, I neither spoke nor understood one word
of French. In the years we have lived here, my French has come a long
way, but by no means is it eloquent! It is not easy for me. To help
a mother one-on-one is no problem at all in any language, but leading
meetings in French (which I must often do) really challenges me!
Did LLL Exist Before in
Gabon?
Some Leaders from France
visited Gabon years ago, but until 1989 no LLL Group existed. There
are now two La Leche League Leaders in Gabon: Lawrence Descourtieux,
a French leader who lives in Port Gentil, the second largest city in
Gabon, and myself. Unfortunately, Port Gentil is reachable only by plane
or boat, so Lawrence and I do not get to see each other often. But we
support each other by phoning and faxing back and forth.
What Is the LLL Libreville
Group Like?
We have about three to four
mothers who have become regulars at Group meetings. Our mailing list
currently has about 20 names, and many of these mothers come when they
can. Our Group is quite multinational. We have mothers from Gabon, USA,
Benin, South Africa, Nigeria, England, Netherlands, Malaysia, Democratic
Republic of Congo (old Zaire), France, Burundi, Ghana, and Zimbabwe.
The age span of the babies
in our group is quite wide. We have some newborn babies, we have some
"older babies," and we have had four nursing toddlers. We also have
some mothers of grown children who believe in the cause of breastfeeding
and attend our meetings.
Such a group is fascinating
and very, very challenging. We are divided almost right down the middle
in terms of language spoken, about half of us speak English, and half
of us speak French. Several of us can speak a fair bit of both, but
not everyone can.
What Is the Breastfeeding
Climate in Gabon?
A challenge to breastfeeding
in Gabon, as in other developing countries, involves the perception
that artificial milks are superior and embraced by the economically
advantaged. While mothers who have no economic choice do breastfeed
their babies for at least a short while, others who are more economically
privileged often do not breastfeed. Or, if they do, the duration of
breastfeeding is likely to be very, very short - perhaps only one week
or less. The private clinics here, which serve these more "fortunate"
mothers, are well looked after by representatives from a large corporation
that sells and heavily markets artificial milk products. Free samples
are always given to mothers (free gifts are very much valued
here) and babies are automatically supplemented and kept in the nursery
unless mothers strongly insist that they want to have rooming
in and to breastfeed. There are two Baby Friendly Hospitals (BFHI) in
Libreville. Both are public hospitals but most of the clinics are private.
One of my helping situations
involved a Caucasian mother married to a black African man. She had
a very healthy full-term baby and was nursing well up to the third day
after the birth. The mother was told the baby "looked a little yellow"
and would need phototherapy. Hospital staff took the baby from the mother
and put him under the lights. The mother was told that the therapy had
to be continuous and that she would not be able to breastfeed her child
as often as she had been before he started therapy. While the baby was
in the nursery under the lights, the staff supplemented him with artificial
baby milk every three hours. The mother always supplemented after that
because she felt she never made enough milk.
About a year later, I was
much more vigilant, and I was working with a much better informed mother.
In this case, both the mother and father were Caucasian, and the hospital
staff told the mother the baby looked "a little yellow" and would need
phototherapy. Being well informed, this mother allowed the baby to be
taken to the nursery for phototherapy, but she also insisted on nursing
her baby every two hours until he was released from the hospital. The
baby, fully breastfed at three months old, was round and chubby!
At a recent meeting, we had
in attendance a local pediatrician who is a breastfeeding advocate and
who works in a Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) certified public
hospital. My planned discussion topic was newborn jaundice. All of the
mothers at this meeting, except one, were black Africans. They all seemed
puzzled when I addressed this issue so strongly-even the pediatrician
was confused. I stopped and asked some questions about the attendees'
experiences with newborn jaundice. I learned from the mothers and from
our visiting pediatrician that newborn jaundice in black African babies
is very rarely a problem. In fact, the pediatrician said that in her
13 years of practice, she had only seen one case of pathological jaundice--caused
by blood incompatibilities between mother and baby!
What Are Our Plans for the
Future?
Being an idealist, I think
mothering through breastfeeding is the nourishment the world needs to
blossom and grow into a healthy place where all people are respected
and valued. Mothering through breastfeeding may be the first step in
creating stronger families, stronger and more caring communities, and
a stronger, more loving, and less hostile world. To quote Peggy O'Mara's
mission statement in Mothering Magazine, "Raising the heirs of
our civilization well is the prerequisite for a healthy society." I
can think of no better starting point to "raising the heirs of our civilization
well" than mothering through breastfeeding.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:31:07 UTC 2007.
