Breastfeeding benefits for women & children highlighted

PESHAWAR: The World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is marked every year from 1 to 7 August across the world to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies.

This year theme of WBW is “BREASTFEEDING: Foundation of Life”. Breastfeeding has a multitude of benefits for women and children, regardless of whether they live in a rich or poor household.

As per Lancet, a reputable medical journal breastfeeding saves lives and improves health.

As a perfectly adapted nutritional supply, breastmilk is the ultimate personalized medicine which may save about 820,000 lives a year, 87 per cent of them infants under six months of age.

It also helps to prepare children for a prosperous future. Longer breastfeeding is associated with higher performance on intelligence tests among children and adolescents. Despite the high cultural acceptance for breastfeeding in Pakistan, the country has the highest bottle-feeding rates and lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates in South Asia.

The percentage of exclusively breastfed children in Pakistan has remained static, with just a microscopic increase evident, over the last seven years.

According to the Demographic Health Survey, this percentage has risen only from 37.1 per cent in 2006-07 to 37.7 per cent in 2012-13. However, when it comes to the bottle-feeding race, Pakistan has no close competitors; bottle-feeding rates have risen from an already undesirable 32.1 per cent in 2006-07 to a shamefully high 41 per cent in 2012-13.

Pakistan was among the 118 countries that had voted in favour of adopting International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes during the World Health Assembly in May 1981.

However, the legislation came very late in Pakistan when “The Protection of Breast-Feeding and Child Nutrition Ordinance, 2002” (XCIII Of 2002) was passed on the 26th October in 2002. With this Pakistan became one of the 42 countries with legislation to adopt most of the articles of the Code. Currently, all provinces have adopted/passed provincial laws for protection and promotion breastfeeding. However, implementation of these laws is still a dream.

Lasoona, Society for Human and Natural Resource Development an executive member of SUNCSA, Pakistan, (Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Alliance; a coalition of over 150 civil society organizations together with SUN Academia & Research Network Pakistan, a network 52 Universities) is implementing a project on sustainable solutions to food and nutrition insecurity in KP with the objective, “the Food and Nutrition Security status of pregnant/lactating women and children is improved through addressing the underlying and basic causes of malnutrition and demonstrate integrated efforts at district level”.

Nutrition education program is one of the main focus areas of the project. Diversified stakeholders are involved in their implementation. The project, with the support of its stakeholders, is organizing multiple activities from district to community levels to highlight the importance of breastfeeding during WBW this year. This also includes a vibrant social media campaign for promoting enabling social environment to support and encourage breastfeeding.

In order to improve breastfeeding situation, SUNCSA, Pak and LASOONA have suggested to the federal and provincial governments to enforce legislation on breast milk substitutes, provide a supportive environment for maternity protection for women in employment and ensure that breastfeeding is initiated in maternity facilities and no infant formula is routinely used.

The CSA has suggested the capacity building of health providers and community workers, to offer counselling on Infant Young Child Feeding (IYCF) and mother-to-mother support groups in the community, accompanied by communication strategies to promote breastfeeding, using multiple channels and messages tailored to the local context.