Shortly after giving birth, women in eight countries in the world are under immense pressure from the food industry not to breastfeed their babies, but to use prefabricated baby milk. The industry does not shy away from the bribery of health workers and online stalking to deception via sponsored information networks and helplines.
The World Health Council and the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, say this based on a large-scale survey of young parents, pregnant women and health professionals in urban areas in Bangladesh, China, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and South Africa.
“This report clearly shows that baby milk sales methods remain unacceptably intrusive, misleading and aggressive,” said WHO chief executive Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urging that regulation be improved and, above all, better enforced. Because there is already an international code – adopted in 1981 – that aims to protect young mothers against aggressive marketing by the food industry. The industry is therefore trampling on it.
According to the WHO/Unicef survey, more than half of respondents have been harassed by the industry, often in violation of the said code. Not only young parents, but also health professionals are bombarded with misleading and unscientific information about the dangers of breastfeeding and the benefits of factory-produced baby milk. Women are frightened by unsubstantiated stories about the need for whole milk in the first days after birth, the immunity that a baby would build with it and about the insufficient nutritional value of breastfeeding.
50 billion euros
The industry, worth some 50 billion euros, succeeds in seriously undermining the confidence of young mothers in breastfeeding. “Incorrect and misleading information about baby milk is a major barrier to breastfeeding, which we know is best for babies and mothers,” said UNICEF chief executive Catherine Russell, who just to be sure about ‘her’ facts. move: breastfeeding alone within an hour of birth and then for the first six months, and then for two years or more in combination with baby milk, a great defense against both malnutrition and obesity.
“In addition,” said Russell, “breastfeeding serves as the first vaccine, protecting the baby against many childhood diseases and limiting mothers’ risk of diabetes, obesity and some cancers.” Despite those benefits, only 44 percent of babies worldwide are breastfed alone for the first six months. That has hardly increased in the past twenty years, while the sale of factory milk has more than doubled in the same period.
worrisome
Against that background, both organizations say it is deeply worrying that the food industry in all eight countries surveyed has approached large numbers of health professionals to lobby for it. In exchange for research grants, paid attendance at meetings, and sometimes even commission on sales, they had to misinform young parents and placate free samples and gifts. More than a third of the women surveyed had been approached by a health professional with advice on a specific brand of whole milk.
Based on their report, the WHO and UNICEF are calling on governments, health professionals and industry to tighten the rules, implement the existing code in full, invest in breastfeeding and decent parental leave, and prohibit health professionals from altering any part of the food industry. take.
Olvarit Baby food with roast turkey and the Keurslager without animal welfare requirements. These were two of the five products that had a chance to win the title ‘Liegebeest 2021’ from the Wakker Dier Foundation:
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