After three years: NIFB holds first meeting

Lack of board meetings meant there was no regulation of formula milk prescriptions

ISLAMABAD: Three years after being re-notified, a national board aimed at monitoring implementation of the breastfeeding law became functional at the federal level a few days back.

The National Infant Feeding Board, however, remains inactive at the provincial level.

Dr Baseer Khan Achakzai, director of the Nutrition Wing at the Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and Coordination (NHSRC), told The Express Tribune that the NIFB held its first ever meeting on December 19.



The Pakistan Promotion and Protection of Breastfeeding Ordinance was passed in 200, but it took nearly seven years to formulate the breastfeeding rules in 2009 to implement and monitor the ordinance. Under the rules, the NFIB had been constituted and notified on July 5, 2010. The board met multiple times before the 18th Amendment was passed. It was not till 2013 that it was re-notified by NHSRC in the official gazette.

According to the minutes of the first ever meeting of the NIFB, available with The Express Tribune, Unicef Pakistan’s Chief Nutritionist Melanie Galvin said, “Breastfeeding statistics have not been improving for Pakistan mainly due to lack of awareness regarding how important breastfeeding is.” She said that Unicef and NHSRC have designed tools to educate physicians about breastfeeding, which are expected to be finalised by 2017.

“Recent critical research has also shown a significant relationship between breast cancer and breastfeeding,” said Galvin.

Inactive NIFB

Due to the dormancy of NIFB, the government has been unable to regulate the indiscriminate prescription of formula milk by healthcare providers at every level of the health system, Dr Achakzai said.



“Due to the non-functional NIFB, Pakistan had been unable to effectively implement its breastfeeding laws in order to improve the breastfeeding rate, which still languishes at 38 per cent,” he said.

“Despite having a law, [Pakistan] has the highest bottle-feeding rates and the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates in South Asia, which is embarrassing,” Dr Achakzai added.

He noted that while laws and rules for IFBs have been made, the board, especially at the provincial level, have failed to organise.

“Despite [formulation of laws, rules and official notifications], none of the provinces have conducted any IFB or committee meetings since its formation and passing of the breastfeeding law with notified provincial Infant feeding boards,” Dr Achakzai said.

Furthermore, he pointed out that there was a lack of community engagement and community-based breastfeeding promotion programmes or initiatives.

“With the lack of implementation and attention we are still standing at zero and our children continue to be malnourished,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2016.