As measles outbreaks continue across the country, many parents are now fighting relentlessly in hospitals to save their children. Recently, I spoke with one such mother at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Mohakhali, Dhaka. She had come from Gazipur. Even in the intense heat, she sat beside her son’s bed fully covered in a large hijab, with only her eyes visible. She could not have been older than 24, and she appeared extremely thin and frail. She said that because her husband did not want it, none of her four children—including the child infected with measles—had received any vaccines.

For more than a month, I have been speaking almost regularly with mothers of children with measles at Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Dhaka Medical College Hospital as well. Most of these mothers have little decision-making power within their families. Nor did it seem that they had the luxury to worry about maintaining their figure or fitness. Given the price of infant formula or powdered milk, it also did not appear that the mothers present in these three hospitals could afford them.

The reason for writing this is a recent claim that has surfaced. On 13 May, amid successive child deaths from measles, Abdullah Al Jaber, member secretary of the organisation Inquilab Moncho, said at a press conference that “55 per cent of mothers are not breastfeeding their children out of fear of losing fitness.” The next day, however, he attempted to partially revise his statement in a Facebook post. He wrote that a “study” by Deutsche Welle had found that around 55 per cent of mothers were not breastfeeding their children, causing those children to develop weak immunity.

Abdullah Al Jaber also added that among that 55 per cent, many mothers were unable to breastfeed because of various difficulties. Since he had not initially mentioned this “many,” his statement was being misinterpreted, for which he apologised.

Although Abdullah Al Jaber referred to it as a “study,” it was actually a news report published by Deutsche Welle Bangla. The report quoted physician Lelin Chowdhury as saying, “Research shows that if a child is breastfed, the immunity developed during the first six months is so strong that vaccines are not necessary during that period. After that, immunity begins to decline. That is why the vaccination age was set at 9 months. Now research has found that 55 per cent of mothers are not breastfeeding, so these children are not developing immunity.”

However, he did not connect mothers’ failure to breastfeed with concerns about fitness.