According to Save the Children's report, infant mortality in Bangladesh alone could be cut by almost a third — saving the lives of 314 children every day — if breast-feeding rates were improved. Globally, the organization believes, 3,800 lives could be saved each day. Given that world leaders are committed to cutting infant mortality by two thirds by 2015 as one of the Millennium Development Goals, protecting and promoting breast-feeding is almost certainly the biggest single thing that could be done to better child survival rates.
But the formula companies, despite the international code, continue to undermine campaigners' efforts. Throughout the west as well as in the developing world, the amounts spent on "breast is best" campaigns are dwarfed by the amounts food manufacturers spend on promoting their products: in the UK, for example, Save the Children reckons that for every ?1 spent in 2006-2007 on breast-feeding promotion, ?10 was spent by manufacturers on advertising and promoting baby milk and foods. If companies such as Nestle genuinely wanted to do what Tickle says they want to do, which is support breast-feeding, there is a simple way forward: convert its efficient, and effective, network of sales reps into an equally efficient and effective network of breast-feeding advisors.
Back in Dhaka, at the diarrhea hospital, Eti is on the mend. She and her mother Mina have spent time with a breast-feeding counselor, and Mina has agreed to try to start breast-feeding again. Kabir is delighted — he says as many as 70 percent of mothers who give up breast-feeding can get their milk going again, given proper support and advice. All the same, it would have been infinitely better if women such as Mina never stopped breast-feeding in the first place
The truth at the center of this story is this: for babies such as Eti and Nur, in countries like Bangladesh, there is no healthy substitute for breast-feeding.
RSS