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SEMANA MUNDIAL DE LACTANCIA MATERNA

Semana Mundial de la Lactancia Materna 1997

World Breastfeeding Week

Action folder online '1997 Breastfeeding: Nature's Way

The WBW is a promotional strategy created by the WABA to revitalize and recover the practice of breastfeeding. It is a powerful tool which coordinates and evokes diverse action groups and institutions that work for human development and a better quality of life.  In the last five years, The WBWs have proven to be a successful strategy in working with new allies or partners such as governments, international organizations, NGOs, citizens, schools, churches, means of communication, legislators, social political planners among others. 

Every year the WABA chooses a theme which involves diverse sectors of society in the promotion of maternal nursing: 

• 1992 - Baby Friendly Hospital 
• 1993 - Mother Friendly workplace 
• 1994 - Making the Code Work 
• 1995 - Breastfeeding Empowers Women
• 1996 - Breastfeeding - A Community Responsibility

Working side by side with our supporters from around the world, let's make this WBW a great event. 

• Introduction 
• Processing artificial baby milks wastes energy
• Breastmilk needs no extra-packaging
• Disposal methods pollute air, land and groundwater.
• Transportation pollutes and wastes fuel
• Preparation - more waste
• Processed baby milk may be contaminated
• Examples of contamination
• Breastfeeding is preferable to any alternative

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) has chosen the theme "Breastfeeding: Nature's Way" for World Breastfeeding Week' 1997 : 

• to celebrate women's capacity to sustain humanity; 
• to cherish the life giving benefits of breastmilk; and 
• to recognize breastfeeding as the most ecological food system.

There are many positive reasons for women to breastfeed their babies: breastmilk is the best and most nutritious food, protecting them from illness and ensuring healthy physical and psychological development.  For mothers, breastfeeding provides several health benefits such as reduction in the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, diminished post-partum bleeding and iron deficiency anemia, and a natural means of spacing children by delaying ovulation. Breastfeeding also empowers women by increasing their self-confidence in their capacity to nourish and protect as well as nurture their babies and by decreasing their dependence on commercial products.  Breastfeeding benefits all sectors of society economically, ecologically and socially. However, over the last decades, women's self confidence in their capacity to nourish their infants has been undermined by many factors, including the power of the infant formula industry and a lack of social support.  Millions of babies fall ill every year because they are not breastfed. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 1.5 million infant deaths could be avoided every year if all babies were breastfed.  Perhaps the least known of all the advantages of breastfeeding are the ecological benefits. Breastmilk is a natural and renewable resource which is often overlooked. Breastfeeding protects the environment by reducing the demands made on it and eliminates sources of waste and pollution. Artificial baby milks and processed baby foods are non-renewable products which create ecological damage at every stage of their production, distribution and use.  Breastfeeding is unique - it causes no pollution and is the best example of how humanity can sustain itself through provision of the first and most complete food for human life.  It is vital to increase our efforts to support, protect and promote breastfeeding. All sectors of society need to learn about the advantages of breastfeeding and how to support the natural rights of mothers to breastfeed and babies to be breastfed. All women should have access to information and support in order to be able to make truly informed choices about these natural rights.  The breastfeeding culture is culture of peace, balance and harmony. It involves trusteeship and global responsibility towards our young, and seeks accountability from governments and various spiritual traditions to support families in nurturing children. Almost all great world religions recognize breastfeeding as a essential nurturing the young and respect women's role in doing so. 

Let us use the occasion of World Breastfeeding Week 1997 to work side by side with our common partners from around the world to restore a breastfeeding culture - a culture that respects mother earth, appreciates humanity's gift of life and that follows nature's way. 

Baby milk consists of a mixture of factory-processed substances which may be then added to cow's milk and converted into powder at high temperatures. This wastes a lot of electrical energy. This energy usually comes from hydro-electric or nuclear power plants that are expensive and cause a lot of damage to the environment. 

Breastmilk is naturally produced. A mother's normal low-cost diet is transformed into a natural, invaluable and specialized food for her baby! This is the most energy efficient food production system ever known! 

The packaging of manufactured baby milk wastes tin plate, paper and plastic. Bottles, teats and other feeding equipment use plastic, rubber, silicon and glass. 

To bottle feed all US babies, the 550 million tins sold each year, stacked end to end would circle the earth one and a half times. In 1987, 4.5 million feeding bottles were sold in Pakistan alone. These feeding bottles stacked end to end would reach the top of Mount Everest. 

The packages used for baby foods, along with feeding bottles, teats and pacifiers, are commonly thrown away after use. Normally these are not biodegradable. Plastic feeding bottles, teats and pacifiers take 200 to 450 years to break down when disposed in landfills. Glass feeding bottles take an undetermined amount of time to break down.  Landfill and incineration are the most common disposal methods. Landfill sites can pollute groundwater, and there is a shortage of suitable sites in some countries. Incineration releases pollutants into the air: if plastic bottles are burned, the fumes may contain dioxin and other toxic substances. 

The beauty of breastmilk is that one need not worry about disposal and it is immediately available without any need for packaging and preparation. Breastfeeding is waste free. 

The fresh cows' milk, grains and additives used in making baby food travel long distances even before processing, and additional long distances on the way to central, then regional warehouses, and finally, retail outlets. Many countries import baby food and feeding bottles from the other side of the world. This means a great waste of fuel and contributes to air pollution everywhere. 

Breastmilk does not have to be shipped around the world; every mother has a ready supply wherever she goes... 

A 3 month old bottle-fed baby needs a litre of water per day to mix with the formula powder. Another two litres are needed to sterilize the bottles and teats. If the water is boiled over a wood fire, more than 73 kg of wood are needed to prepare a year's feeds. In many parts of the world, water and fuel are so scarce that few mothers have the luxury of keeping the bottles and teats clean and of using only boiled, cooled water to make up the feeds. 

Breastmilk is ready to use at the right temperature, does not need to be sterilized and causes no pollution. 

Baby milk is an industrially manufactured food which undergoes multiple processing, additions and alterations as it is converted from cows' milk plus additives to a can full of powder. No wonder that it has proved vulnerable from danger to contamination by harmful bacteria, radio-activity, chemicals, foreign bodies and insect pests. Furthermore, the water mixed with the powder poses another danger of contamination, while problems have also arisen from teats breaking during use. 

Breastmilk is a living substance. Each woman's milk is individually tailored for her own baby. What's more, her milk changes constantly - both during a feed and day by day - to meet her baby's evolving needs. When a mother is exposed to pathogens in the environment, she produces antibodies to combat them. The mother's antibodies are then passed on to her baby via her breastmilk. 

• 1997 - UK : Milumil withdrawn from sale after being linked with salmonella infection.
• 1997 - USA: FDA recalled Nestle's Carnation follow-up formula because of adulteration and production under unsanitary conditions. Linked with mild gastrointestinal illness. 11,317 cases of 6 32 oz. cans to a case recalled.
• 1996 - USA: Carnation Alsoy Concentrate liquid in 32 oz. cans withdrawn because instructions on the top of the can state: Do not add water. Mislabeling could have led to infants consuming undiluted, concentrated formula. The side label indicated the addition of water.
• 1996 - USA: Heinz apple and prune juice for infants in 4 oz. bottles recalled because they contained quantities of lead in excess of 80 ppb.
• 1994 - Sri Lanka: Customs officers sent back a large consignment of Nestle's milk powder imported from Poland because it was contaminated with radioactive particles.
• 1993 - USA: Nutramigen formula recalled after it is found to contain broken glass.
• 1993 - USA: Soyalac formula withdrawn following discovery of salmonella contamination. 
• 1992 - India: Live black insects and crawling worms found in a packet of Lactogen infant formula. 

Industrial pollution means that toxic substances, including dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), are found in our food, in our bodies and throughout the environment. Because of this widespread pollution, they have also been found, along with other pollutants, in some samples of cow`s milk and breastmilk. 
 

• However, after a careful evaluation by WHO - The World Health Organization - in regards to environmental toxins and the risks to children, it was concluded that the advantages of breastmilk far outweigh any possible risks and recommend breastfeeding as preferable to any alternative.