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NURSE Vicky Honar will be travelling to Greece on Monday to volunteer as part of a team in a refugee camp helping mothers with young babies fleeing from the Syrian conflict.
She will be heading to the Polykastro area, a troubled hotspot recently under the media spotlight where migrants and refugees have been protesting, near the closed Greek-Macedonian border.
Nurture Project International (NPI), a US-based, grassroots, non-profit organisation, is focused on providing support to the refugee population in Europe and the Middle East, and has been appealing for volunteers experienced in infant feeding support such as nurses, breastfeeding counsellors and midwives.
“I have been following the story of the ‘refugee crisis’ in the countries close to Syria and Iraq such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey and as they travel through Europe and have wished I could help in some way – other than donating via the Red Cross and sending blankets,” explained Vicky, 61, who lives in Saar with her husband, Mehdi, chairman of Bahrain Rugby Football Club.
“This project has offered me the opportunity to use my knowledge and skills around infant feeding, especially breastfeeding, to help in a practical way. In addition to being a midwife and lactation consultant, having worked for more than 20 years in the Middle East I speak quite good Arabic – certainly enough to communicate with the women about breastfeeding and baby care.
“The refugees have left their homes because they are absolutely desperate and their lives are in danger, they are seeking safety for themselves and their children – as we would all do in the same circumstances.”
Mother-of-two Vicky – her musician son, Sohrab (Rab), 22, is now living in London having graduated with a degree in Psychology from Cardiff Metropolitan University last year and daughter, Persia, 19, is studying Criminology and Law at the University of Sussex – is a first aid trainer with First Aid Box, better known as FAB, and a lactation consultant in private practice. She is a qualified nurse and midwife and worked in midwifery in her home country of Scotland and in the Gulf region.
She is also well known in Bahrain for organising free ‘breastfeeding cafes’ where women can come with their babies to meet up with other breastfeeding mothers and share experiences and support. There are usually two to three gatherings each month, including regular Saturday morning cafes for women who are back at work.
NPI was the brainchild of founder Brooke Bauer, who lives in Abu Dhabi. “The organisation wouldn’t run without volunteers like Vicky. They are the very heart and soul of the work that we do,” she said.
Vicky is convinced her experience will help in the challenge ahead in Greece and will be paying all costs herself, including flights and accommodation.
“There are many families travelling with young babies who are now stuck in the camps in Northern Greece,” Vicky said.
“I believe the camps have very few services – no running water, electricity, healthcare – and only very basic toilet facilities. This combination – vulnerable babies and young children in a crowded and unsanitary environment – can very easily lead to serious illnesses.
“It is very difficult for the mothers to prevent their babies from getting sick in these circumstances.
“NPI is there to provide a protected area where women can breastfeed their babies and get support and advice on any breastfeeding related problems they may have.
“The mothers are also provided with personal hygiene packs and given extra food such as granola bars to keep up their strength. Unfortunately, many of the mothers are not breastfeeding so NPI provides artificial baby milk for them and teaches them to cup feed the babies to avoid the use of bottles and teats which are very difficult to clean in this environment and can be a major source of infection.”
There are approximately 2,000 refugees at Polykastro but the numbers fluctuate on a daily basis. There is a continuous flow of women coming to the NPI tent looking for help.
Vicky will be part of a team including midwives, lactation consultants and lay volunteers and will be ‘on duty’ at the camp every day.
“We will be carrying out assessments on the mothers and babies to see what they require,” she said. “I will most likely be focusing on women who have problems with breastfeeding. For example, if a woman is breastfeeding and using formula we can help her to increase her milk supply so she can stop using formula which will be much safer for her baby.
“We may also visit refugee mothers who give birth in the local hospitals and support and assist them to initiate breastfeeding from the start. We will also be talking to the women about general baby and child care, and about good nutrition both for themselves and their families.”
Vicky was one of a family of seven children and her mother told all of them that being breastfed had helped keep them healthy.
“We rarely had upset stomachs or colds and hardly ever missed school unlike the children of her friends who were bottle-fed,” she said.
She consolidated her interest in breastfeeding during her 20 years as a midwife and practiced what she preached by breastfeeding her own children until they were two.
She became an International Board-certified Lactation Consultant in 2005, a qualification which required a postgraduate level of study and is recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the American Academy of Paediatrics.
As a lactation consultant she provides her services to pregnant women and their husbands as they prepare for the birth of their babies, so that they know what to expect and how to get breastfeeding off to a good start. She also sees women living in the kingdom with their babies after the birth to support them and help with any problems they may have.
However, the plight of mothers who have fled barrel bombs dropped by Syrian government forces and the awful abuses and murders perpetrated by Daesh is a whole different matter. There are regular outbreaks of severe diarrhoea among bottle- fed babies in refugee camps.
“Babies in refugee families who are travelling and living in refugee camps are in severe danger of contracting infections if they are not breastfed,” explained Vicky. “Not only do they lack the immune protections of their mother’s breast milk but the absence of hygiene, clean water, power to boil the water, facilities to clean feeding bottles and teats make it very difficult for their mothers to ensure that the formula is made up properly and is not contaminated.
“When there are disasters many organisations rush to send emergency supplies to the affected areas and these often include breast milk substitutes (BMS) / baby formula or other powdered milks, as well as bottles and teats.
“This is strongly discouraged by all relief organisations. In any disaster or refugee situation the safest option for feeding babies is to breastfeed.
“If supplies of BMS arrive as an uncontrolled donation and handed out to families, they may start using it for their babies instead of breastfeeding which will lead to a huge increase in illness and even death, especially where water supplies have been disrupted and people are living in crowded conditions.
“Often the tins that are donated are close to their expiry dates and labelled in languages that the families cannot read. It is much better to donate money to buy supplies of food for the families locally, and the relief organisations will give extra rations to breastfeeding mothers to support them.
“There is a common misunderstanding that when a woman is stressed she will not be able to produce enough breast milk for her baby. Sadly, many women believe this but it is not true. Stress may, however, reduce the flow of the milk to the baby as the mother is tense: in these circumstances the women need information, support and care to help them to continue breastfeeding which is much safer for their babies.
“Even where women are not having enough to eat, they still manage to produce plenty of milk; only in cases of severe malnutrition do women no longer have the capacity to feed their babies adequately.
“Where babies are already being bottle-fed in disaster areas and refugee camps relief organisations can provide BMS which is usually obtained locally, well within date, appropriately labelled with instructions that families can read and understand, and they teach the families to give it to the babies by cups rather than bottles, as they are much easier to clean.”
* Although Vicky is paying for all her volunteering expenses, NPI needs funds for many of the costs of running the project and so she has set up a social media fundraising page.
For $10 you can help feed a breastfeeding mother for one day. $15 will help feed both mother and child. $25 will provide backpacks filled with diapers, clothing, snacks and water, high calorie foods, baby blankets, toys, information on breastfeeding and common misconceptions, mobile support contact information, and letters of support from around the globe. $30 will help feed three pairs of mothers and babies for a day. And $40 will provide lactation support for 20 families.
For more details, visit https://nurtureprojectinternational.org/donations/vickys-call-to-help-mothers-and-babies/
