Experts warn of alarming rise in bottle-feeding

Bottle-feeding rates have risen alarmingly during the last couple of years in Pakistan after formula milk companies made use of various immoral and illegal methods and techniques to promote bottle-feeding in Pakistan, experts and authorities said on Thursday.

Ironically, these companies are targeting not only doctors but also paramedics, nurses and even administrative staff and officials of hospitals and maternity homes in order to robe them into prescribing their products, officials conceded.

They added that due to the connivance of health officials in this “filthy activity”, no action was possible against the promoters of formula milk and local health officials.

“All kinds of incentives and tactics are being used to promote formula milk among young mothers and health officials are being offered luxury tours locally and abroad, precious gifts, renovations of their homes and offices, cash payments in the form of sponsorships so that they could prescribe these formulas to the young mothers,” said eminent pediatrician and National Institute of Child Health (NICH) director Prof Jamal Raza while talking to The News on Thursday.

As breastfeeding week is being observed from August 1 to 7, 2018, throughout the world to promote breastfeeding, local pediatricians believe that bottle-feeding rates have surpassed 50 per cent during the last couple of years due to what they called “illegal and immoral marketing tactics” allegedly adopted by the formula milk-producing companies, while exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months was either declining or had been static for the last few years in the country.

“There is a 200 per cent increase in illegal and immoral methods by the formula milk companies to promote their products and they are using all the illegal techniques in their kitty to promote their products among new mothers,” Prof Raza said and added that after a ban on advertisements for formula milk for one-year-old children, these companies had started using “deceptive advertisements” to entice young mothers to use their products.

He shared that in order to combat such tactics, their organization, Pakistan Pediatric Association (PPA), was holding training workshops, conferences and seminars for the pediatricians, gynecologists and nursing staff to promote exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and to also advise mothers not to give “complimentary feeding” like cereals to their children as they were also “unhealthy” for children.

Bottle-feeding’s harm

Renowned pediatrician Prof Iqbal Memon was of the opinion that bottle-feeding was the major cause of infections and nutritional deficiencies among infants as mothers were relying more on formula milk than on breastfeeding.

“Bottle-fed infants and children often become sick due to infections while they are weak as compared to those who are breastfed. Despite these simple facts, mothers are being enticed to give formula-milk which is not healthy for their kids,” Dr Memon said, adding that breastfeeding prevented children from frequent infections and diseases like diarrhea.

“I tell mothers that if they want to see their children healthy, successful and smart, they should give them breastfeed for first six months and avoid using so-called formula milk. Breastfeed is a natural gift for children and they should not be deprived of it.”

‘Breastfeeding declining’

Despite the high cultural acceptance for breastfeeding in Pakistan, the country has the highest bottle-feeding rates and the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates in South Asia, experts and pediatricians claimed, adding that Pakistan was among the 118 countries that had voted in favour of adopting International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes during the World Health Assembly in May 1981.

They deplored that legislation came very late in Pakistan when The Protection of Breast-Feeding and Child Nutrition Ordinance, 2002 (XCIII Of 2002) was passed on October 26, 2002, and Pakistan became one of the 42 countries with legislation to adopt most of the articles of the code.

Currently, all provinces have adopted/passed provincial laws for protection and promotion breastfeeding. However, the implementation of these laws was still a dream.

They said that this year the theme of World Breastfeeding Week is “Breastfeeding: Foundation of Life”, and added that breastfeeding had a multitude of benefits for women and children, regardless of whether they lived in a rich or a poor household.