MANDEVILLE, Manchester — A senior health official has said that the breastfeeding of children is a human rights issue backed by international conventions and is the foundation on which the highest standard for health can be attained.

To that end, National Breastfeeding Week, which ended last Saturday, was centred on the need for multiple sectors, including businesses, to work towards sustaining the practice, even as mothers have to return to work.

One of the objectives of the week, according to Sharmaine Edwards, director of nutritional services in the Ministry of Health, was to raise awareness of the need to strengthen national legislation and engage with organisations such as trade unions, women’s groups and youth groups to protect the breastfeeding rights of women in the workplace.

Edwards, who was speaking at the official launch of the week in Mandeville, said some of the obstacles at present are cultural, which dictates whether breastfeeding in public is appropriate inadequate maternity protection; and lack of programme, facilities and time to support breastfeeding in the workplace.

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) representative at the event Dr Rebecca Tortello said that breastfeeding reduces inequity as breast milk is available to all children regardless of their socio-economic level.

Exclusive breastfeeding provides babies with the perfect nutrition for healthy growth and brain development and protects against life-threatening ailment, Tortello added.

“According to the World Health Organisation, malnutrition is responsible directly or indirectly for about one-third of the deaths worldwide among children under five. That’s almost 800,000 children a year dying because of inappropriate feeding practices during their first year,” she said. “This means that we need to continue to work towards increasing [and] supporting the number of women worldwide who breastfeed at birth and continue to breast at least for the first six months.”

It was noted at the launch, held under the theme ‘Breastfeeding and Work: Let’s Make it Work’, that Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) member governments are being encouraged to implement the International Labour Organisation conventions which call for sufficient time for maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks, private rooms for breastfeeding or milk expression in workplaces.

Regional technical director at the Southern Regional Health Authority Dr Michael Coombs, in presenting the message from Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson, said that everyone should be encouraged to being breastfeeding advocates.

He said that supportive fathers in households are one of the important stakeholders to the success of the process.

“What I just shared with you about the importance of the support of our fathers in this issue of breastfeeding underscores the fact that for effective parenting, which is critical to a child’s health and development, both fathers and mothers must be involved,” said Coombs.