Oketch Bitek
4 September 2006
Gulu — At least 4000 infants and young children die everyday in Uganda due to lack of breastfeeding. This was disclosed by the Health Minister in charge of General Duties, Dr Richard Nduhura in Gulu on Tuesday.
Nduhura was addressing a rally to mark the World Breastfeeding Week.
"Everyday, as many as 4000 infants and young children die because they are not breastfed. Why should this continue?" Asked Nduhura.
He said the trend could be reversed if mothers are empowered with enough knowledge about breastfeeding and are continuously motivated and supported to breastfeed the children.
The minister blamed the increasingly poor breastfeeding culture in the country on aggressive advertising for bottle feeding, where marketing gimmicks and slogans are used to discredit breastfeeding.
"Those advertisers claim breastfeeding is best but bottle feeding is almost as good as breastfeeding," Nduhura said.
He said they use striking images of well breastfed babies to persuade mothers to buy their feeding bottles, yet they are putting the next generation in danger.
According to a recent World Health Organisation report, babies who do not breastfeed are six times more likely to die from diarrhoea or respiratory infections.
The report said HIV positive mothers have to make the hard decision of whether or not to breastfed their babies.
"For HIV positive mothers, the decision whether or not to breastfeed a child can be difficult, because studies show that babies, who breastfeed from HIV positive mothers, have a 5 to 20 per cent chance of getting infected," the report said.
Nduhura, however, said health workers worldwide have realised the fatal consequences of bottle-feeding. The theme of this year's World Breastfeeding Week was 'Regulating the Marketing of Infant Foods.'
Gulu LC5 Chairman Norbert Mao promised to visit radio stations in the district and stop advertisements of "junk bottle and other infant food items." He called on husbands to support their wives in breastfeeding their infants.
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