World Breastfeeding Conference 2012 in New Delhi, India

Attending the World Breastfeeding Conference 2012 in New Delhi, India was the most exciting and humbling of all the conferences and events I have been connected to in the 25 years I have been supporting breastfeeding mothers and babies.

The Inaugural session opened with the alarming statistic that 92 million of the world’s babies are not getting their mothers’ milk exclusively or at all in the first six months of life.  As the latest Infant Feeding Survey just published tells us, fewer than 2% of British babies are exclusively breastfed for the first six months.  This is a global problem and needs addressing by all the countries in the world.

In poorer countries 1½ million babies die because of diseases that can be prevented by exclusive breastfeeding.  In the UK our babies don’t die directly because we spend a lot of money on medical care to treat these diseases--£44 million/year calculated in the most recent research published by UNICEF UK.  Is it ok to waste our resources this way?  Can we really afford it?

Do we have any responsibility for the rest of the world?  Successive governments think so.  We spend vast amounts of money on international aid.  The British public thinks so.  We donate huge sums whenever there is a disaster in the world.

If we really care about the world’s children we will normalise breastfeeding and I will never be ashamed again as I was when Albert Lure from Uganda spoke to me after seeing my name badge, ‘United Kingdom.  You are the cause of undermining breastfeeding in Uganda…Our young girls go to the UK and see white women using bottles and pacifiers and say, “that is what I will do as this is what women do in the UK.”’

 

Jill