BREAST CRAWL
A UNIQUE METHOD FOR INITIATION
OF BREASTFEEDING
A normal newborn, when placed on the mother’s chest/ abdomen, has an inborn ability to crawl to the breast and take the first breastfeed. This is known as the breast crawl.
UNICEF, WHO, WABA, all the governmental agencies and NGOs advocate exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life and to continue breastfeeding for 2 years along with proper weaning foods (Ten steps, BFHI, IYCF recommendations). All the agencies recommend that Breasfeeding should be initiated in the first hour of birth. Breast Crawl is the method/ technique which helps initiation of breastfeeding in the most natural way. It is novel, easy, readily available, easily reproducible, evidence based and cost effective miraculous method to initiate breastfeeding, the nature’s way. It doesn’t require elaborate preparations or instructions and can be performed in all the birthing settings/ units.  
Initiation of breastfeeding involves two components: the skin to skin contact and the first breastfeed. We have been taught to initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth. As a result, most of the times, the mother gets a well wrapped baby to feed within an hour of birth even in a few baby friendly hospitals and consequently all the advantages of skin to skin contact are lost. Skin to skin contact helps maintain the baby’s body temperature, helps colonization of the maternal bacterial flora, maintains baby’s sugar levels, improves neonatal metabolic stability, enhances maternal – infant relationship/ bonding and earlier establishment of effective suckling and feeding behaviors. All these enhance the newborn’s sensory neural development. These babies cry less, are emotionally more stable and are at a lower risk for abandonment. Breast Crawl allows maximal skin to skin contact, enhancing all the advantages, in the most natural way.
 Till date we have overlooked the abilities of the newborn and wrongly assumed that the baby is not capable and needs help to feed. The newborn is most alert and active in the first hour of birth called State Four: the state of Reactivity/ the quiet state of consciousness and tends to fall asleep in about 2 hours after birth. The newborn, when kept on the mother’s abdomen, lies with its eyes wide open, gazing at the mother’s face. The newborn is capable of not only recognizing the mother’s face but also differentiate the mother’s voice soon after birth. The baby’s sense of smell propels her towards the mother’s breast with coordinated upper and lower arm and body movements. The Breast Crawl provides ideal inputs to the baby for complete sensory – motor development in the future.  If all women breastfeed their baby in the first hour
of birth, there will be 22% reduction in all newborn deaths from 0 –
28 days. For all countries combined, the neonatal mortality can be reduced
by 24% if 99% of initiated breastfeeding on day 1 of life and by 31%
if 99% of initiation was within the 1st hour. Initiation of
breastfeeding within the 1st hour of birth is thus the first
and most vital step towards reducing infant and under
5 mortality. There was a marked increase in risk with increasing
delay in initiation. This means, 22 million babies will be saved in the
world every year if all women breastfeed their child in the first hour
of birth. This is the result of a study which was done in
 BPNI
(Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India)
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