Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16199

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Publication type: news

Podger C.
WHO urges Asia's women to breastfeed
ABC News 2009 Aug 6
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/06/2647837.htm

Full text:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is pushing for more breastfeeding by Asian women in the face of growing marketing of infant powdered formula feeds and pressure on mothers to go back to work.

The agency says while the health benefits of breast milk have been well-established for years, too many new mothers are weaning their babies early or do not breastfeed at all.

The WHO says ideally, women should breastfeed their babies for at least six months.

Breast milk protects against allergies and disease and can safeguard against obesity.

And in countries where water supplies are unreliable or polluted, breastmilk offers protection against diarrhoea, the world’s biggest killer of children under five.

Getting that message across to women is part of this year’s World Breastfeeding Week campaign.

The United Nations’ children fund, UNICEF, has held a breastfeeding awareness rally in India’s north-east state of Assam.

Jorhat district magistrate Dhiren Das, who helped organise the event, says UNICEF wanted to make the public aware of the desirability of early breastfeeding after delivery.

To make a successful start with breastfeeding, WHO recommends mothers attempt it within an hour of giving birth.

But in Vietnam that message is being drowned out by advertising for infant formula.

The WHO representative in Hanoi, Jean-Marc Olive, told Radio Australia’s Connect Asia that advertisements for prepared food are everywhere.

Despite laws against promoting formula for babies under two, he says women feel under pressure to give it to newborns.

He says the ads push formula as being “modern, for the elite” and suggest “breastfeeding is for the old times”.

Mr Olive says commercials raise fear for Vietnamese women that their breasts are small and cannot provide enough milk for their baby.

The WHO wants more countries to legislate to give women six months’ maternity leave so they can breastfeed for longer.

A handful of countries have no legal provision for paid maternity leave, including Australia.

Carey Wood, spokeswoman for the Australian Breastfeeding Association, says studies indicate putting an infant into childcare so a mother can work and earn has a poor financial result down the track.

“There’s a study in the United States that showed that they will take six to seven times more sick leave than comparable workmates where their baby is not breastfed,” Ms Wood said.

“So we [society] don’t value breastfeeding, we don’t see the hidden costs. We don’t see the fact that [infant] admissions to hospital are primarily babies that aren’t breastfed.”

The WHO’s Jean-Marc Olive says Vietnam already has four months of maternity leave but extending it by another two months will have good effects in mother-child bonding and “will really be a benefit for breast feeding”.