1-7th October 2022 marked National Breastfeeding Week in Ireland. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) call for urgent action to regulate the marketing of breast-milk substitutes.
Currently, Ireland’s breastfeeding rates are amongst the lowest in the world with only 60% of mothers reporting any breastfeeding at discharge from hospital, including combination feeding. At six months of age, fewer than 6% of infants in Ireland are exclusively breastfed compared to a global average of 40% and a European average of 25%.
According to the HSE, breastfeeding is the biologically normal feeding method for infants and young children and ensures optimum growth and development.
World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF recommend:
Despite the huge body of evidence to support breastfeeding, just 49% of Irish infants are being exclusively breastfed at discharge from hospital. This represents an increase year on year over the past decade but it is far from the 100% of babies UNICEF and the WHO recommend should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life.
Aggressive marketing of breast milk substitutes remains a major structural factor threatening the enabling environment of breastfeeding. Clear evidence of a negative effect on infant and maternal health and rates of breastfeeding is found when breast milk substitutes are marketed inappropriately, according to the HSE.
In 1981, the 34th World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (the Code) to regulate the marketing of breast-milk substitutes. The only other product for which the World Health Assembly adopted a code of marketing is the tobacco industry.
Forty years on, formula milk marketing still represents one of the most underappreciated risks to infants’ and children’s health. Scaling up breastfeeding could prevent an estimated 800 000 deaths of children under 5 and 20 000 breast cancer deaths among mothers each year, according to UNICEF & WHO. Despite the Code and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions, formula milk companies continue to put sales and shareholder interests before infant and population health. The formula milk industry is worth $55 billion worldwide.
A recent report published by UNICEF & the World Health Organisation calls for urgent action to regulate the advertising of commercial milk formulae. The report states:
The research shows that formula milk marketing knows no limits. It misuses and distorts information to influence decisions and practices. The consequences for the health and human rights of women and children are not new but often overlooked. For about forty years, most countries have collectively and repeatedly articulated through international instruments and resolutions that formula milk marketing should not occur.
In Ireland, organisations such as the Baby Feeding Law Group Ireland (BFLG) have called for full legislation and implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes in Irish and EU legislation.
In an address at the ‘Latching On’ event hosted by Mrs Sabina Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin during National Breastfeeding Week, BFLG member Elaine Uí Ghearáin said,
There is growing recognition of the need for better breastfeeding support at government level and many positive recent developments such as the commitment to hire more lactation consultants, legislation for lactation breaks and the adoption of the Code within HSE policy.
Indeed, there have been recent legislative developments which will see greater regulation of infant and follow-on formulae by the forthcoming Coimisiún na Meán (the Media Commission) thanks to the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill which is currently progressing through the Oireachtas. Imelda Munster TD commented in relation to the Bill that, “Protecting our children from advertising by multi billion global corporations is the least we can do as legislators”.
Furthermore, both the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Irish College of General Practitioners have recently ceased the carrying of infant formula ads in their membership magazines and the Baby Feeding Law Group Ireland has said it expects other organisations to soon follow suit.
In spite of these successes, Ireland’s own formula industry is worth 1.5billion euro, accounting for 10% of the global market. Green Party Senator Pauline O’Reilly called the Irish infant formula industry “big business” for Irish dairy farmers and processors, saying, “This is very much behind why we allow the promotion of these products to go ahead.”
It is time to put global infant and maternal health ahead of the interests of “big business”?
Link to UNICEF & WHO Report, HOW THE MARKETING OF FORMULA MILK INFLUENCES OUR DECISIONS ON INFANT FEEDING (World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2022)