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Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
Government must regulate advertisement of infant feeding formula, amid concerns that more than half of lactating mothers are mixing formula and breast milk for babies below the age of six months.
According to the Demographic Health Survey of 2015, although 98 out of every 100 children are breast fed, only 48 percent are fed with breast milk alone within the first six months of birth, resulting in increased cases of malnutrition.
World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations stipulate that the first six months should be exclusively for breast feeding. Statistics further show that 26 out of 100 children in Zimbabwe are too short for their age – a condition that Government attributed to insufficient nutrients within the first years of life.
Taking turns to describe the importance of breast milk in newly born babies at the official launch of this year’s World Breastfeeding Week held in Harare recently, health experts from WHO, UNICEF, Save the Children and Maternal and Child Health Integrated Programme (MCHIP), said regulating marketing of breast feeding substitutes could discourage their use by women.
“We encourage the Government and partners to enforce international policies and programmes that promote breast feeding and these include enforcing the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes so that breast milk substitute companies cannot mislead women,” said WHO country representative Dr David Okello.
MCHIP country director Professor Rose Kambarami said Government should strengthen policy provisions that supported working mothers to encourage more women to breastfeed up to two years and beyond.
“We know that the current law allows for three months maternity leave, but we would need more months so that the mother has more time to exclusively breast feed their babies,” she said.
In his keynote address, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said there was need for more awareness on the role and importance of breast milk in babies, particularly the first two years of life.
He called on everyone to encourage and support women to feed their babies with breast milk alone for the first six months and introduce complementary feeding thereafter up to two years or beyond.
Dr Parirenyatwa said Government noted with concern that cases of infant malnutrition were high between two years of age and five years – the period when most mothers weaned their babies and introduced complementary feeding.
“About half of all the children are given breast milk only for only two months of their lives, he said. ‘‘This predisposes children to infections and compromises their growth and development.”
Dr Parirenyatwa urged communities to play their part in encouraging and supporting mothers to breast feed their babies.
Online Reporter