Companies were also promoting breast-milk substitutes through sub-assistant community medical officers, or SACMOs, at Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) vaccination centres and during antenatal care services.
During the same period, the BBF monitored 12 baby-friendly hospitals and interviewed 72 doctors and nurses. Presenting the findings, Sufia Khatun said all 12, or 100 per cent, of the hospitals either did not have a functional “Baby-Friendly Hospital Committee” or had no such committee at all.
None of the hospitals had an effective breastfeeding corner, she said. Promotion of infant foods and violations of the law were found at almost all the hospitals. There was no accountability mechanism at any of the facilities.
Criticising the roles of the government, professionals and civil society, Sufia Khatun said the most troubling issue was that the very people whom parents regard almost like gods and whose advice they readily follow were promoting infant foods.
“Instead of teaching mothers how to breastfeed, they are handing them cans of infant formula,” she said.
Director General of the Directorate General of Family Planning Jinnat Rehana, the chief guest at the event, said mothers must not be blamed under any circumstances and should instead be provided with a supportive environment.
Samina Ahmed, chairman of the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, said school curricula should contain at least a paragraph on the benefits of breastfeeding.
Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, acting director general of the Bangladesh National Nutrition Council, said the National Nutrition Policy was being updated, with special emphasis being placed on child nutrition.
Speaking at the seminar, Rowshan Jahan Akhtar, deputy director of the Institute of Public Health Nutrition, said the World Health Organization and the Institute of Public Health Nutrition were working together to centrally monitor whether the law was being followed.
She said new breastfeeding corners had recently been established in 140 government hospitals.
Director of the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM) Professor Nasrin Sultana and Professor Iffat Ara Shamsad, former head of the Department of Paediatrics at Dhaka Medical College, also spoke at the seminar.
