Hawa Conteh is a resident of Lamin and operates a small business to support her family. Hawa has been operating her small business for five years now. Paying great attention to her children as required, she takes a pause from active business and focuses on her children to ensure they are exclusively breastfed. Earlier last year, she and her husband were blessed with twins (a boy and a girl) but one of the twins has been sick from birth, and she was frequently admitted to the hospital. Hawa added, “I had to express milk for my sick baby because he was too weak to breastfeed properly. However, with the help of the nurses present my sick baby was fed through a machine on a daily basis”.

Unfortunately for her, one of the sick twins earlier admitted could not make it, leaving Hawa broken and devastated as she lamented. She claimed the death of one of her twins left a deep scar on her and that negatively affected the surviving twin because she could not produce enough milk for her baby. She also added when the exclusive circle ended she resorted to complementary feeding to support her baby but the baby was not very receptive to complementary feeding which was a challenging experience. Hawa’s family and husband have been very supportive during her continued breastfeeding journey. Despite the odds, a resilient and dedicated Hawa ensured the surviving baby felt the joy and bond of motherhood.