RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion/World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO/WHO) is call­ing for stronger gov­ern­ment over­sight of breast­milk sub­sti­tutes, warn­ing that some prod­ucts on the mar­ket may con­tain con­t­a­m­i­nants and pose risks to in­fants.

PA­HO/WHO rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Dutch En­ti­ties, Dr Gabriel Vi­vas Francesconi, made the call yes­ter­day while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the Ba­by-Friend­ly Hos­pi­tal Ini­tia­tive (BFHI) Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Cer­e­mo­ny at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al and Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal.

Dr Francesconi com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for the hos­pi­tal’s ac­cred­i­ta­tion, mak­ing it the fifth hos­pi­tal in T&T to achieve the des­ig­na­tion. How­ev­er, he said more has to be done.

“While the in­ter­na­tion­al quo­ta for the mar­ket­ing of breast­feed­ing sub­sti­tutes ex­ists, we sup­port na­tion­al leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion from in­dus­try whose goal is eco­nom­ic gain at any cost,” he said.

He added, “Just last week, there was a re­call of breast­feed­ing sub­sti­tutes be­cause of the pos­si­ble pres­ence of con­t­a­m­i­nants. We need to con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing these sit­u­a­tions.”

He said T&T is now close to full na­tion­al cov­er­age, with on­ly one ma­jor pub­lic hos­pi­tal left to be ac­cred­it­ed.

“We’re al­most there, we on­ly have one more left, and we hope … that we’re gonna work on the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal this year.”

Dr Francesconi said the ac­cred­i­ta­tion re­flects years of team­work and com­mit­ment to moth­ers, new­borns and fam­i­lies, cred­it­ing the Min­istry of Health, hos­pi­tal lead­er­ship, ma­ter­ni­ty and neona­tal teams, lac­ta­tion con­sul­tants, mid­wives, nurs­es, doc­tors and sup­port staff.

He al­so high­light­ed PA­HO/WHO’s on­go­ing sup­port for breast­feed­ing ini­tia­tives in T&T, in­clud­ing tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance to the Min­istry of Health’s Na­tion­al Breast­feed­ing Unit, staff train­ing and sup­port for vul­ner­a­ble in­fants.

“These vul­ner­a­ble ba­bies need skin-to-skin care, breast­feed­ing and love. Kan­ga­roo moth­er care makes the dif­fer­ence,” he said, not­ing that PA­HO pro­vid­ed 1,500 kan­ga­roo wraps last year for dis­tri­b­u­tion across five re­gions.

Dr Francesconi said the breast­feed­ing pro­mo­tion must re­main a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty, with a tar­get of 50 per cent of ba­bies be­ing ex­clu­sive­ly breast­fed for the first six months of life. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that the BFHI ac­cred­i­ta­tion is not the end of the jour­ney.

Re­spond­ing to his call, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe ac­knowl­edged the im­por­tance of breast­feed­ing but said Gov­ern­ment ef­forts to reg­u­late breast­milk sub­sti­tutes of­ten face re­sis­tance.

“It is al­ways a touchy is­sue,” Bo­doe said. “Of course, there is a rule for milk sub­sti­tutes. Our goal is to en­sure that every moth­er is giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to breast­feed. And that is what this Ba­by-Friend­ly Hos­pi­tal Ini­tia­tive is about.”

He ex­plained that while breast­feed­ing is strong­ly en­cour­aged, sub­sti­tutes are some­times nec­es­sary and must there­fore be prop­er­ly reg­u­lat­ed.

“There is a lot of push­back from in­dus­tries,” he said, de­scrib­ing what he called an on­go­ing bat­tle be­tween the in­dus­try and the health­care sec­tor.

He al­so ref­er­enced leg­isla­tive mea­sures to bet­ter sup­port moth­ers, such as in­creased ma­ter­ni­ty leave and pro­tec­tions for breast­feed­ing women.

“We will con­tin­ue to move in that di­rec­tion,” Bo­doe said, as he en­cour­aged new moth­ers to per­sist with breast­feed­ing where pos­si­ble.