Protecting Breastfeeding

As we observe breastfeeding week in this month (August 1 to 7), it is worth remembering that the breastfeed is the birth right of every child. Breastfeeding provides the best start to life. It is nature's most precious gift to the new born, an equivalent of which is yet to be innovated.

Mother's milk, beyond doubt, is unparallel in nutritional value. The protection it provides to infants against diseases, and financial and social implications it has for a poor and over-populated country like ours cannot be overemphasized.

World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) has focused on ways to protect breastfeeding by eliminating advertising and other harmful marketing practices for infant feeding products and has given the slogan of WBW 2006 as " Code Watch: 25 years of Protecting Breastfeeding".

India has implemented the code by enacting "Infant Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992, as amended in 2003" (IMS Act). BPNI adapted the WBW theme in India as: "The IMS Act: Making it known to people".

TNAI advocates regular refresher courses and on-the-job training, technical as well as management training, development of training material, strengthening of health facilities and promoting research for the nurse professionals in the area of breastfeeding practices for establishing breastfeeding culture.

We wish you all Happy Independence Day!

Sheila Seda

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