Promotion of breast-feeding critical - NGO

The Network for Consumer Protection (NCP), an Islamabad-based NGO working to promote civil rights, has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of breast-feeding amongst mothers and healthcare professionals as the practice is declining in Pakistan, health workers say. “Breast milk is the ideal and perfect food for the development and healthy growth of infants. It stimulates their immune system and improves response to vaccination,” Dr Ayesha Zaman, NCP project coordinator, told IRIN on Thursday in the capital, Islamabad. Citing studies by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Zaman said that 41,000 children die every year in Pakistan due to diarrhoeal diseases, caused mainly by contaminated water and bottle-feeding. The chances of contracting such illnesses increase during the current monsoon season due to rapid bacterial growth. “The health ministry undertakes educational campaigns during the summer months to advertise the threat of drinking unsafe water,” Zaman added. "But little is done to project the positive role of breastfeeding in this scenario." The ‘Gold Ribbon’ campaign for breastfeeding has been launched in Pakistan in collaboration with UNICEF and the World Alliance for Breast-feeding Action (WABA). Although 96 percent of mothers start breast-feeding at the birth of their babies in Pakistan, only 56 percent continue to do so until the child is two years old. An NCP study shows that only 16 percent of infants in Pakistan are exclusively breastfed up to the age of four months as compared to other South Asian nations - 46 percent in Bangladesh and 37 percent in India. According to health rights activists, accurate knowledge, a supportive environment and confidence are major factors, which enable mothers to breast-feed successfully. “Generally, 96 percent of mothers who come to hospitals complaining they cannot breast-feed just need advice. But the inability of our health professionals turns them towards artificial milk formulas,” Dr Shamsa Ahmed, a gynecologist at the Railway Hospital in the city of Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital Islamabad, told IRIN. “Our health professionals lack breast-feeding education. We need to sensitise our gynecologists, paramedics, nurses and family health workers to the benefits of breast-feeding,” Ahmed said. Educating mothers about the benefits of long-term breast-feeding is necessary, according to health professionals as the monetary cost of breast-feeding is far less than the cost of using infant formula, a critical factor given the low income of the average Pakistani family, one of the lowest in Asia. The government appears to support breast-feeding and issued the ‘Protection of Breast-feeding and Child Nutrition Ordinance’ in 2002. The law also regulates the marketing of breast milk substitutes and unethical marketing practices from the baby milk manufacturers. However, the delay in formulation of rules and regulations necessary to implement the law has allowed many breast milk-substitute manufacturers to continue to operate in a market devoid of regulation. A number of babies in China died of malnutrition recently after having been fed on low quality breast milk substitute. “Translating an ordinance into an applicable law is a gigantic task and can’t be done overnight. However, most of the work has been done and little is remaining,” Dr Farah Sabhi, assistant director of nutrition at the Health Ministry told IRIN. The NCP is launching an experimental implementation plan to help the government in translating the ordinance into law and to evaluate the needs of mothers and heath practitioners. “We are going to launch a pilot project over six months in three hospitals in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi,” Dr Ahsan Latif, head of health projects at the NCP, told IRIN.