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Expert seeks policy on infant formula sales’ regulation

By Tayo Oredola
11 August 2016   |   5:34 am
A consultant paediatrician with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi – Araba, Lagos, Dr. Abiola Oduwole, has called for a policy to regulate the arbitrary purchase of infant formulas ...
PHOTO: gettyimages

PHOTO: gettyimages

A consultant paediatrician with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi – Araba, Lagos, Dr. Abiola Oduwole, has called for a policy to regulate the arbitrary purchase of infant formulas in the country to improve the low breastfeeding rate.

Oduwole who spoke at a workshop to commemorate the World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) in Lagos said: “If government formulates a policy in that regard, it would help checkmate the indiscriminate sales of infant formulas, which hinders the promotion of breastfeeding in the country.”

According to her, the country’s 17 per cent exclusive breastfeeding rate is below the global average of 35 per cent and it is unacceptable.

Infant formula she said if brought under strict rules of prescription only by experts would enhance breastfeeding among mothers and as a result boost its low rate.

Oduwole who is the Chairperson of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative further noted that countries like Ghana has a policy that guards sales of infant formulas as its strictly by prescription in cases where some mothers cannot breastfeed for tangible reasons.

She advanced that the initiative has boost Ghana’s breastfeeding rate to over 65 per cent over the last few years.

Oduwole noted that the benefits of breastfeeding to both mother and baby especially if done exclusively could not be over emphasized; hence a collective effort is needed to attain it.

She explained that most mothers who put their babies on both breastfeeding and infant formula when they are small for gestation tends to overfeed them, therefore developing audible cells to create bedrock for obesity in such babie

“Children with such experiences are prone to diseases like diabetes, hypertension and other related ones in adulthood, which is why exclusive breastfeeding is extremely important,” she added.

She also stated that breastfeeding for mothers prevent ailments like breast and ovarian cancers because it help to balance hormones during lactation period as well as grant quick body recovery to pre pregnancy stage.

“Formula milk during the first six month for mothers mean your body has not gone back to the normal stage and that might spell danger due to hormonal imbalance,” she expressed.

Similarly, Head of Neonatology Unit, LUTH, Prof. Chinyere Ezeaka who described breast milk as a modern miracle because of its living cells content affirmed that breastfeeding is a major intervention to the reduction of global under five mortality by 800,000 annually thus imperative to avert Nigeria’s poor under five statistics.

Responding to a suggested guidelines for mandatory breastfeeding among Nigerian women, Chairman Medical Advisory Committee (CMAC), LUTH, Dr. Olufemi Fasanmade, said such laws that relates to raising of children would be difficult to enact because it happens in the home front and as such women cannot be commanded to breastfeed rather they can be encouraged.

“We can not arrest companies that provide artificial milk formula because not every woman can breastfeed, so it is difficult to pass and enforce a law that every child must be breastfed,” he noted.

Fasanmade, however, appealed to lactating mothers to endeavour to breastfeed their babies for it gives them the right nutritional foundation in life.

WBW is an annual event, which is commemorated from August 1 to 7 and it seeks to encourage the health of babies through breastfeeding.

This year’s theme was “Breastfeeding: A Key to Sustainable Development.”

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