Feeding babies with nothing but breast milk for the first six months of
their life is beneficial for the health of newborns as mother’s milk
provides the necessary nutrients for the babies to grow and protects
them from diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, a health official
has said.
Health Deputy Minister Nguyen Viet Tien
stated this at a ceremony to launch Vietnam ’s Breastfeeding Week
2012 in Hanoi on August 1.
The week, with the
theme ‘the road to lifelong health begins with breastfeeding”, is
jointly organised by the Ministry of Health, the UN Children’s Fund
(UNICEF), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Alive & Thrive
project.
According to Tien, in June 2012, the
National Assembly adopted the amended Labour Law, which extends
maternity leave to six months and takes effect on May 1, 2013.
The NA also passed a Law on Advertising, which includes a ban on the
marketing of breast milk substitutes for children under 24 months.
These moves have made it easier for mothers to only breastfeed during
the first six months of a child’s life, as well as in the following
months, he said.
Several activities during the
week will raise awareness on the importance of breastfeeding to ensure
that all children are breastfed and develop well physically and
intellectually in the future, noted Tien.
Jesper
Moller, UNICEF’s Acting Chief Representative in Vietnam , said that by
voting to extend maternity leave to six months, Vietnam has become a
leader in developing protective laws that safeguard the well-being of
children and mothers.
When mothers practice
exclusive breastfeeding, it leads to healthier children and this reduces
the financial outlay spent each year on illnesses caused by poor
feeding, he said.
Therefore, Vietnam needs to
work with the business community to create a child-friendly working
environment, which will enable mothers to continue breastfeeding after
six months, he concluded.
According to the
National Institute of Nutrition, only 62 percent of the 1.5 million
Vietnamese children born annually are breastfed in the first few hours
of their life and only one out of five mothers exclusively breastfeed
their children in the first six months of their lives.-VNA