World Breastfeeding Week: CRM calls for support of working mothers

Percentage of exclusively breastfed children remains static, bottle-feeding on the rise

The Child Rights Movement (CRM) Pakistan has called for concerted action to support women in claiming their and their baby’s right to breastfeed, in connection with this year’s World Breastfeeding Week theme ‘Breastfeeding and Work - Let’s Make it Work!’

The alliance urged for implementation of Protection of Breast-feeding and Child Nutrition Ordinance 2002 and its 2009 rules, said a press release issued on Friday.

In Pakistan, the female labour force participation is increasing but little attention is paid to workplace lactation support programmes, said the statement. Working mothers find it difficult to continue breastfeeding their babies and have to use formula milk. In order to support working mothers for promotion of breastfeeding, the CRM Pakistan recommended various interventions. These include educating and guiding working mothers about breastfeeding, enhancing employers’ awareness about importance of breastfeeding, arranging physical facilities for breastfeeding support at workplace, flexibility in work environment for lactating mothers, and developing a mother-and-baby-friendly policy at work.

Pakistan is among the 118 countries which 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 October 26, 2002. Pakistan became one of the 42 countries to adopt most articles of the code.

Currently, all provinces have adopted or passed laws for protection and promotion of breastfeeding, however, implementation of these laws is still a dream.

For Pakistan, despite high cultural acceptance for breastfeeding, the country has 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, the percentage has risen only from 37.1 per cent in 2006-07 to 37.7 per cent in 2012-13. However, bottle-feeding rates have risen from an already undesirable 32.1 per cent in 2006-07 to 41 per cent in 2012-13.

Globally, breastfeeding has the potential to prevent about 800,000 deaths among children under five each year if they are optimally breastfed for about two years. Exclusive breastfeeding and adequate complementary feeding are key interventions for improving child survival. About 22 per cent of newborn deaths can be prevented if breastfeeding is initiated within the first hour of birth; and 16 per cent if it is started within first 24 hours of birth.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2015.