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Long-silence towards notifying the rules and regulations of breastfeeding law
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Islamabad August 17, 2009. ------Playing with children’s lives, the ministry of health has kept a long-silence
towards notifying the rules and regulations of breastfeeding law, despite the tall claims to notify it during the
World Breastfeeding Week.
Like every year the WBW 2009 is over from 1-7 August, but health managers did nothing to save the thousands of
children silently moving towards their deaths.
In Pakistan, 77 infants die out of 1000 live births every year. Out of these 57 are those who die before reaching
one month of age due to diarrhea, pneumonia, respiratory infections and malnutrition. A major source of these
diseases is lack of exclusive breastfeeding, use of unhygienic bottles, formula milk and teats.
These infants can be saved by implementing the breastfeeding law but the delay in framing the rules has created
issues related to non-compliance of the ordinance.
It is pertinent to mention here that the government of Pakistan passed the “Protection of Breastfeeding and Young
Child Nutrition Ordinance” in October 2002 to protect breastfeeding practice from the commercial onslaught of the
industry and to fulfill international commitments.
Dripping with irony the ministry of health despite having the draft of these rules and regulations proposed by
health experts is not interested in notifying it due to the unknown reasons.
Consequently, the provisions of the legislation remain on the ministry’s shelves, and no action has been taken
yet ignoring the fact that notification of rules and regulations are necessary for the implementation of any law.
The Exclusive Breastfeeding rate in Pakistan is the lowest among South Asian region, which is 37.1 percent only.
Where as the rate of bottle-feeding is higher in Pakistan in south Asian region, which is 32.1 percent. These
indications are very thought-provoking as well as shameful for the health managers.
Dr.Arif Azad, Chief Executive Officer, TheNetwork for Consumer Protection said that Pakistan lags behind than
other south Asian countries in health indicators regarding child and maternal mortality. “Protection of
Breastfeeding and Young Child Nutrition Ordinance” was a step in right direction in minimizing child and
mortality rate. Since, then there has been a lamentable delay in issuing notification of rules and regulations
that are crucial for the implementation of the ordinance. The government should act speedily by notifying rules
and regulations in coming days; time is of the essence now. Further delay would set us further back on achieving
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs- 1, 3, 4).
The National Alliance for Promotion and Protection of Breastfeeding urges the government to notify rules and
regulations as a crucial step towards the implementation of this ordinance, which would contribute enormously to
improving mother and child health.
If the breastfeeding protection law is not to become yet another in a series of un-implemented pieces of social
legislation in Pakistan, action needs to be taken now. Ministry of Health needs to demonstrate its commitment to
protecting the health and lives of its citizens by notifying full rules and regulations of the law for its
implementation.
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