Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a seminar on Wednesday urged to promote breastfeeding as breastfeeding practices could save more than 820,000 lives of children in a year globally.

They said this at the culmination event of World Breastfeeding Week 2018, organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations & Coordination at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts in Islamabad on Wednesday.

They said that breastfeeding has profound benefits for infants that extend beyond childhood, numerous benefits for mothers and benefits for the family.

Beyond these well-documented positive aspects for long-term health and wellbeing, breastfeeding has a beneficial impact on the workplace, the health care system and largely on society, they said, adding that investing in breastfeeding reduces the annual health care costs and increases productivity associated with higher intelligence.

Speakers further said that research shows that an estimated 22 percent of newborn deaths could be prevented if breastfeeding is started within the first hour after birth and 16 percent if it is started in the first 24 hours. It is also important to note that infants who are not breastfed are 15 times more likely to die from pneumonia and 11 times more likely to die from diarrhea than those who are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life, they said.

Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation & Coordination Federal Secretary Professor Batool Mazhar, UNICEF Country Representative Aida Girma, Dr Muhammad Assai from the World Health Organisation and nutrition expert Dr Baseer Khan Achakzai spoke on the occasion.

They said that outdated practices that separate mothers and babies after birth, rising rates of over-medicalised institutional deliveries, unnecessary cesarean sections, misleading information by health professionals and aggressive marketing by the infant formula industry are the main challenges and hindrance in improvement in the breastfeeding practices.

World Health Assembly under the United Nations set targets to improve breastfeeding in 69th World Health Assembly in 1981 and government of Pakistan has also committed to adhere to these global targets.

They said that the government and Ministry of NHSR&C is cognisant of the fact and the need thereof in this respect. In 2002, necessary legislation for protection and promotion of breast feeding was made through, the Protection of Breast-Feeding & Child Nutrition Ordinance and in 2009, the breast-feeding rules were also formulated and endorsed by the Health Ministry. However, enforcement of these rules remains a challenge.

Aida Girma reiterates UNICEF’s “commitment to the government to work with governments to target critical nutrition activities such as improving breastfeeding rates”.

Legislation regarding child nutrition and protection of breast milk benefits and implementation of these laws at provincial level should be the priority.

Our exclusive BF rate is only 38 percent that’s why we have 44 percent stunted children which may lead to a loss of 2-3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Also, our IQ level of children are compromised reluctantly our economic generation force would be diminished in a decade.

Published in Daily Times, August 30^th 2018.