ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: The participants of a consultation have stressed on the need for promoting, supporting and protecting breastfeeding in the country.

They were speaking at the roundtable consultation on ‘Protection of Breastfeeding and Young Child Nutrition Ordinance 2002’, organized jointly by Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) and The Network on Wednesday.

The participants regretted lack of commitment on the part of the government in this regard. They stressed on the need for creating awareness among the people on the importance and benefits of breastfeeding. Parliamentary secretary for health Raheela Yahya was the chief guest.

They were of the view that child mortality rate could be reduced in Pakistan by promoting and supporting breastfeeding practices. They said the government always enacted laws, but failed to implement these properly.

They said the ‘Protection of Breastfeeding and Child Nutrition Ordinance 2002’ was promulgated in October last year, and had been enacted by the parliament. But, notification to this effect has not yet been issued.

The participants welcomed the promulgation of the ordinance, but objected to the presence of representatives of the baby formula milk industry in the proposed National Infant Feeding Boards, to be set up under this ordinance.

They said one year had passed when the ordinance was promulgated, but not even a single meeting had been held to initiate the process of formulation of rules and regulations for it.

Speaking on ‘the need for breastfeeding protection: the consumer perspective’, Dr Ehsan Latif of The Network said the denial of breastfeeding was violation of a child’s right. He said breastmilk was necessary for good nutrition of a child and it protected the child from a plethora of diseases, including diarrhoea and malnutrition.

“In a country where 51 per cent of infants are malnourished and infant mortality rate was 84 per 1,000 live births, the importance of breastfeeding cannot be neglected,” he added.

Dr Ehsan said at present, only 16 per cent of the babies were exclusively breastfed till the ages of three months. He termed promotion activities of the baby milk formula manufacturers one of the major factors which undermined the ability of mothers to breastfeed their child.

Giving an example, he said one of the manufacturers of baby formula milk spent Rs60 million for its promotional campaign in Pakistan in 1995-96.

Tracey Wagner Rizvi of Sparc called for effective role of media and civil society members in promotion of breastfeeding.

WHO representative Dr Khalif Bile highlighted the role of his organization in protecting breastfeeding in Pakistan. He called for setting up children-friendly hospitals in the country.

He called for change in rules for the working women to increase their maternity leaves to promote exclusive breastfeeding. He said in Pakistan, a woman could get three months leave, then how could she breastfeed her child for exclusively six months.

One of the participants said out of these three months leave, women had to avail some of these even before deliveries.

Dr Raheela Yahya presented salient features of the ordinance and assured the government’s cooperation in the promotional activities for breastfeeding. Most of the speakers regretted that no official from the Ministry of Health was present in the roundtable which showed their indifferent attitude towards the issue.

A member of the organizing committee told Dawn that they had invited the health minister, health secretary and some senior officials of the ministry to the event, but none of them had turned up. “They fulfilled their responsibility by sending a media adviser of one of the sections of the ministry,” she added.

On the other hand, the media adviser protested on the remarks regarding non-serious attitude of the government officials and said he was representing the ministry. He said notification of the said ordinance would be issued within 15 days.