Denna artikeln skrevs av Elisabeth Kylberg och jag till UNICEF Kommitéen i Sverige.

Skall HIV-positiva mammor amma sina barn? Detta är en svår och kontroversiell fråga. Ungefär 65% av HIV-smittade mödrar föder barn som inte är smittade och ca 14% av dessa barn beräknas att bli smittade genom amning. Men hur balanserar man denna lilla risk för dessa barn att bli smittade gentemot den stora risken som alla barn utsätts för om de inte ammas alls? Bröstmjölksersättning är dyrt, vattnet som används inte tillräckligt rent, men framförallt saknas kunskap när det gäller enkel hygien.

(more…)

This was translated by Claude Didierjean-Jouveau from the original “Breastfeeding and working women — thinking strategically.”

Click here to open the scanned pdf file.

IMAGE: Haratappa Culture, NW India, 2000 BC

Click here to open the pdf file.

What is the International Code?

Big corporations are the winners in today’s world, with earnings far beyond many countries’ gross national products, let alone government budgets. One of the most advanced tools so far developed in regulating the behavior of private enterprise is the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. It was passed by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 1981 with the USA, due to Ronald Reagan’s personal intervention, casting the only dissenting vote. Some 20 countries have implemented it as law and dozens of others have implemented part of it as law or all of it as a voluntary measure. This can be taken as a sign of how seriously threats to breastfeeding have been taken in world policy-making bodies and by governments.

(more…)

Some history

Probably the roots of the “Policymakers’ Meeting: Breastfeeding in the 1990s A Global Initiative” that was held here at the Innocenti Center in Florence on July 30-August 1, 1990 go back to a meeting held by USAID in December 1985. Many leading breastfeeding advocates were present and general dissatisfaction was expressed with the support the donor agencies were giving to breastfeeding. The late Dr. Derrick Jelliffe was particularly upset with the lack of breastfeeding in UNICEF’s program at that time: Growth monitoring, Oral Rehydration, Breastfeeding and Immunization (GOBI). He said that it should be called GObI.

(more…)