Encounter between Indigenous and public health infant feeding recommendations in Peru: Opportunities for optimizing intercultural health policies

MONTEBAN, MADALENA; YUCRA-VELASQUEZ, VALERIA; YUCRA-VELASQUE, BENEDICTA

Belem

Congreso; XVI Congress of the International Society of Ethnobiology; 2018

International Society of Ethnobiology

The problem of childhood under-nutrition in low-income countries persists despite long-standing efforts by local governmental and international development agencies. In order to address this problem, the Peruvian Ministry of Health has focused on providing maternal and child health monitoring and education. Current maternal-child health policies in Peru introduce recommendations that are in some aspects distinct from those of Indigenous highland communities. This paper analyses concordances and differences between public health and mothers' infant feeding recommendations. Furthermore, it analyses persistence and change in those recommendations among women who were mothers before and after the introduction of current public health policies. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 older mothers, 15 currently breastfeeding mothers, and 15 public health staff in highland rural communities of Peru. During data analysis thematic codes and text passages were used in an iterative analytic process to document emerging themes. The results highlight the existence of a traditional corpus of beliefs surrounding infant feeding and care that is consistent with Andean ethnomedical beliefs. Mothers' accounts referred to the importance of maintaining a dietary balance of wet and dry foods and of maintaining harmony with the elements in the environment. In addition, the research found that Andean knowledge associated with infant feeding is resilient. Findings indicate that mothers maintain a distinctively Andean way of seeing infant feeding and care and incorporate aspects of public health recommendations that they find useful. Mothers have incorporated growth (length and weight) and key recommendations, such as initiating breastfeeding immediately after birth and exclusive breastfeeding up until six months. Identifying potential sources of tension or venues for the complementation of distinct systems may provide useful inputs for effective intercultural health policies.