LAHORE: Establishing the Infant Feeding Board is a step in the right direction to effectively implement the Punjab Protection of Breastfeeding and Young Child Nutrition (Amendment) Act 2012.

“The Act prohibits making propagation of any material or assertion in any manner by a manufacturer or a distributor that encourages bottle-feeding or discourages breastfeeding,” said Save the Children in a statement here on Wednesday.

It said the law also prohibited assertion in any manner that any designated product had been a substitute for mother’s milk or equivalent or superior to mother’s milk by any person or presentation of a gift or any other benefit to a health worker or medical practitioner liable to the same penalties.

The law has also made it obligatory on manufacturers of a designated product to publish on its container a conspicuous notice in bold characters that “mother’s milk is best for your baby and helps in preventing diarrhoea and other illnesses.”

Pakistan voted in favour of adopting the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes during the World Health Assembly in May 1981, and promulgated “The Protection of Breastfeeding and Young Child Nutrition Ordinance 2002” to enforce the code.

The ordinance prohibits the promotion of any milk produced as partial or total replacement for mother’s milk or represented as a complement to mother’s milk to meet the growing nutritional needs of an infant.

Last year, the Sindh Assembly adopted the law as “The Sindh Protection of Breastfeeding and Young Child Nutrition Act 2013.”

The release said “Save the Children believes that setting up Infant Feeding Board is a commitment from the Government of Punjab for the effective implementation of the Punjab Protection of Breastfeeding and Young Child Nutrition (Amendment) Act.

Implementation of the breastfeeding law would go a long way to promote breastfeeding (especially exclusive breast feeding) and discourage bottle feeding which will in return put a definite dent in the high prevalence of childhood illnesses (diarrhoea and pneumonia) and infant and under five years of age mortality in the province.”