World Breastfeeding Week

Breastmilk can save millions of lives

Parvez Babul

Breast milk is a unique natural food for infants and babies. Every year August 1-8 is observed in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the world as Breastfeeding Week. The slogan of this year is ‘Breastfeeding: Initiation in the first hour can save more than one million newborn babies’.
   Breastfeeding is natural, safe and life-saving. Everyone who is committed to child health and wellbeing should promote and support mothers through families to initiate breastfeeding in the first hour of her infant’s life. All should support and encourage mothers to give their infants breast milk only during the first six months of life known as exclusive breastfeeding for six months and to continue to breastfeeding until her child is two years old.
   The theme of World Health Day this year was: invest in breastfeeding: build a safer future. It addressed the need to increase global security by strengthening global health. The theme also highlighted that a healthy, strong child is one of the most important building blocks for a secure future in all communities throughout the world. About 29,000 children below five years of age die worldwide everyday, which means one child dies in every three seconds.
   Most of these deaths could have been prevented. Mother’s milk is able to prevent these deaths and it builds a strong base in the lives of infants and children so that the diseases can be prevented. Because the breast milk contains all the necessary components of disease prevention and is life saving unlike animal or formula milk and food.
   According to the Annual Report (2005) of the Nutrition Surveillance Project (NSP) of Helen Keller International (HKI), Bangladesh and Institute of Public Health Nutrition (IPHN), the three measures of malnutrition are very high in Bangladesh. Those are wasting (too thin) at 11.4 percent, stunting (low height for age) at 39.3 percent and underweight (low weight for age) at 46 percent. These high rates of malnutrition are caused by poor breastfeeding practices and insufficient and inappropriate feeding of infants and young children.
   One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG-4) is to reduce child death rates. The infant and child mortality rate is still alarmingly high in Bangladesh. The infant mortality rate in Bangladesh is 41/1000 live births, and under-five mortality rate is 77/1000 live births. In Bangladesh, one hundred thousand children die due to diarrhoea every year.
   Children under two years of age are most vulnerable to diarrhoea and malnutrition. Currently in Bangladesh only 36 percent of mothers are practising exclusive breastfeeding and only 23 percent of mothers were reported to have initiated breastfeeding within the first year of life.
   Helen Keller International (HKI), Bangladesh has called on all health and nutrition practitioners to support mothers to breastfeed their infants optimally. And through the Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) Training Helen Keller International, Bangladesh provides technical skills to health and nutrition practitioners to confidently and correctly share this information and practice these skills.
   Breastfeeding is a biological function and the issue of gender is at the heart of mothers’ ability to practice optimal breastfeeding. Breastfeeding offers biological and social benefits to women and their infants. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) calls Bangladesh to action to ensure that women have the right to breastfeed their children. Men’s involvement and cooperation is needed too raise the awareness, to support and encourage women to breastfeed their children.

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Holiday Desk

The country’s top business leaders have criticised the interference of the international agencies, mainly the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and their bid to influence economic management of Bangladesh.
   They expressed their serious concern over the IMF’s diktat to increase energy prices. They said the IMF directed the government to make adjustments in domestic prices of natural gas; but this, in their opinion, will be a suicidal for the economy.
   It is known that an increase in gas price automatically leads to the increase of production costs as well as an increase in fertiliser price, which consequently influences the already soaring prices of essentials, the statement said. Besides, the cost of doing business will also increase, which will have a direct impact on the economy and much needed employment opportunities for the common people of this country.
   The top trade body leaders added, “It is quite interesting to note that following meticulous IMF prescription Bangladesh has been experiencing double-digit inflation.”
   The signatories to the statement are: Mahbubur Rahman, president of International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh (ICC-B), Mir Nasir Hossain, president of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), Latifur Rahman, president of Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dhaka (MCCI), Hossain Khaled, president of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), M A Latif, president of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), Masih Ul Karim, president of Foreign Investors’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Anwar-ul-Alam Chowdhury, president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Md. Fazlul Hoque, president of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA), Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali, Vice-chairman of Bangladesh Association of Banks, Abdul Hai Sarker, president of Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA), Nizamuddin Ahmed, acting chairman of Bangladesh Insurance Association and Kamran T. Rahman, president of Bangladesh Employers’ Federation.
   The statement said that the recent letter of IMF, as reported in the newspapers, to the finance adviser directing further trade liberalisation for growth momentum and urging to strongly resist formation of a Safeguard Body “is uncalled for and unwarranted”.
   In comparison to other developing countries, Bangladesh—being an LDC—has substantially liberalised its economy at the cost of hardship of entrepreneurs and common people even though under World Trade Organisation (WTO) umbrella, Bangladesh could avail and follow more domestic support measures, it said.

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