1. About Sagkeeng-Anicinabe Project 

The community of Fort Alexander or Sagkeeng First Nation is an Aboriginal community situated about 160 km from Winnipeg in Canada, a major urban centre of 500,000 people. Sagkeeng's "on reserve" population for 1993, as registered with Statistics Canada Indian Registry, is recorded at 3,069. According to the recent research conducted in Sagkeeng, the median maternal age is 17. In the past six months, 40 per cent of those women who gave birth had an average schooling of Grade 10 or less, with the range being from less than Grade 7 to 1 year of University. While the national breastfeeding rate even at six months is between 20 to 30%, the rate of breastfeeding of the community at 3 months is 0%. Infant respiratory infection, gastrointestinal infection and Otto media are problems which are magnified within the Aboriginal communities of Canada.  

2. Aims & Objectives  

Helping young women to combine breastfeeding with continuing schooling became identified as the health need of the community. Up to the present time, there were no facilities available in the school where women could bring their infants with them. Thus many students chose not to continue their schooling. However with the opening of the new highschool recently, plans were in the offing to establish a day care centre and courses directed at parenting skills. 

The day care centre initially planned to only accept two to three-year olds during the first year. With the launch of the WABA project however, the Department of Community Health Sciences of the University of Manitoba implemented the Sagkeeng-Anicinabe Highschool project to encourage breastfeeding by adolescent mothers so that they could return to school. It involved the project co-ordinator, the highschool staff, the health centre staff and the young mothers. The project aimed to make breastfeeding the cultural norm again, to ensure that breastfeeding and care of infants would not hinder the education of young mothers, and to train school personnel and health care workers and to develop a suitable curriculum to incorporate the special needs of the students of this community. The long-term goal is to encourage the school to incorporate young infants in the proposed day care setting within the school, so that mothers of infants are able to attend school while being able to breast feed.  

3. Achievements  

The project produced a community video titled, "So You Want a Healthy Baby" which included messages of prenatal care and about the importance of breastfeeding. Only Aboriginal people are featured in this film to get away from the "white dominant" pictures so common in health videos. The video showed breastfeeding mothers which is quite remarkable considering that at the time of the survey breastfeeding rate were close to 0% by 3 months. A booklet has also been compiled to go along with the video, which includes specifics as to how to combine schooling and breastfeeding.  

Rather than teach the schoolteachers, a peer counselor was involved in a teaching session on breastfeeding for students of Grades 7 and 8. These students are in the age range of 12 to 14 years old. In past research, it was found that the average age of first birth was 17. Therefore, to impact on the adolescent beliefs about breastfeeding, combining breastfeeding with schooling, and the cultural acceptance of breastfeeding, it was decided to teach both male and female students during a window of opportunity before most become parents. 

To continue the support the process of breastfeeding peer support groups, a counselor, Cynthia Fontaine was trained. She began a formal trial of peer counselor input for every woman in the community who initiated any breastfeeding. This involved a series of telephone calls (or home visits for those not having a phone or for those requiring extra assistance) during the first three months of breastfeeding. The purpose of the peer counselor program is to assist women in breastfeeding for at least three months, in whatever circumstance they find themselves. Cynthia's role was to provide information and support for those who are having difficulties, for those who are returning to work or school, and for those who have any questions about breastfeeding. It was found that group settings did not function well in the community - the model of individualized education for breastfeeding women and for women prenatally met with greater success. A training manual for peer counseling was also compiled by Linda Romphf and Cynthia Fontaine for future counselors in Sagkeeng.  

This will be used in the future for new breastfeeding peer counselors in Sagkeeng. The training of an additional peer counselor is already in progress and library books are also being purchase for the peer groups for further reference. Future plans to increase informative literature include the production of individual sheets, using single page format from the video booklet and stories from women of the community. 

Meanwhile, Sagkeeng Anicinabe Highschool implemented a self-paced curriculum, whereby highschool students could have flexible hours and work through the subjects at their own pace. This is aimed to facilitate mothers to breast feed. Young mothers could continue their education if they missed school for a period of time after childbirth, or on days when the infants were sick.