PESHAWAR, Aug 30: Donor agencies and non-governmental organisations have been supplying infant and baby formula milk to the flood-stricken population living in schools and camps in violation of the United Nations’ ‘Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative’ launched in 1991 to press upon the mothers to breastfeed their babies and shun the formula milk.

“The newborn babies should be given breast milk for two years. For initial six months, they should be exclusively breastfed.

The government must take note of the multinational pharmaceutical companies (MNCs) who are promoting their products at the cost of the health of vulnerable mothers and children,” a senior member of the Pakistan Pediatrics Association told Dawn on the condition of anonymity.

According to him, the Unicef and the WHO had accorded status of baby-friendly to 100 hospitals in Pakistan and 15,000 worldwide.

Manufacturers of the formula milk had also been slammed for unethical promotional tactics, he added.

Formula milk entailed many hazards as the flood-affected displaced women don’t have clean water to use the stuff received by them in the form of donations from the NGOs, he said.

“They need to boil water before mixing it with milk but they use contaminated water that causes diseases,” he said, adding that breastfeeding reduced the risk of malnutrition, infection and death. He said that 30,000 infants were malnourished and required breastfeeding.

According to gynaecologists, flood areas in the province had about 50,000 pregnant women.

While being in schools or camps and away from their homes, they would not be able to breastfeed their babies in a room shared by more than 20 persons, they said. Lack of balanced food for the women can turn them malnourished, they added.

“We examined several children in Nowshera, Charsadda, Hangu and Dir who developed acute diarrhoea due to the contaminated water women mixed with formula milk,” say pediatricians.

According to them, about 3.5 million children were at the risk as they were getting contaminated milk. Citing studies published in medical journals, they said that in many areas where hospitals had been designated baby-friendly, more mothers breastfed their infants due to which their health had improved.

Most of the mothers received formula milk from the donors considering it as balanced diet for their babies, they said, adding that majority of these women also found it hard to breastfeed their children due to the quality of food they were getting.

In some health conditions, use of formula milk is advisable on the recommendation of the doctors but in these cases too, mothers should be educated on how to use it, they added.

“In normal circumstances, there is no room for formula milk because all the women who can produce children can also breastfeed them,” said a pediatrician.