Julie Crawford Award for Breastfeeding Support 2005

The third Julie Crawford Award for Breastfeeding Support was announced at the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors’ Association Annual Conference in Bournemouth in November. Sharon Breward, a Health Visitor from Bethesda, North Wales won the award because she had not only made a significant contribution to breastfeeding support in the UK, but had also demonstrated outstanding commitment to the protection of parents from commercial influence.

Paying tribute to the mothers in her care, Sharon is outspoken in her concern about the impact of commercial promotion: “I believe that our profession is long overdue a hard look at itself. Are we merely paying lip service to our public health role while as health visitors acting as a conduit for the marketing activities of milk companies? With increased emphasis on breastfeeding as an effective public health intervention there has been much wringing of hands in the health visiting profession regarding the ‘culture’ of artificial feeding. The impression is that there isn’t much that we can do about it. But health professionals, including health visitors, are a main pillar supporting the cultural acceptance of artificial feeding as normal in our society.”

Sharon set up North Wales’ first breastfeeding clinic, and the breastfeeding initiation rate in her caseload is now 76% (up 25% over 5 years), 85% of whom are still breastfeeding at 8 weeks.

The award is given by the Baby Feeding Law Group which represents the concerns of over half a million health professionals and breastfeeding counsellors. In November 2001, Julie Crawford died from a rare disease, at the age of 42. Julie was a health visitor and a former Director of Baby Milk Action. She cared passionately about breastfeeding and was never frightened to stand up and fight for the rights of mothers to independent and sensitive care. Julie was especially concerned about the extent of industry funding of education for health professionals and was also keen to push for legal action in defence of mother’s rights to breastfeed.

For more information: Patti Rundall, Baby Milk Action, 07786 523493

News from UNICEF: Millions of Lives Saved by Breastfeeding

Six million lives a year are being saved by exclusive breastfeeding, and global breastfeeding rates have risen by at least 15% since 1990, says a report released on the 15th anniversary of the Innocenti Declaration on the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding¹. The Declaration, adopted by all WHO and UNICEF Member States, has been a key strategy on improving the health of infants and young children through breastfeeding. Its 15th anniversary was celebrated in Florence in November, 2005, and Alison Battista, Chair of LLLGB’s Council of Directors, was among the delegates representing LLL, along with Hedy Nuriel, Executive Director of LLL International.

To coincide with the release of the anniversary report, UNICEF UK launched a new online action², asking MPs to support a bill which would make it illegal to prevent a woman breastfeeding in public in the UK. “Exclusive breastfeeding is one of the most powerful tools we have to combat child hunger and death,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman. “The Innocenti Declaration created a movement that has helped to save millions of lives and brought us closer to [UNICEF’s] Millennium Development Goals.”

But the Innocenti partners warned that the original goals of the Declaration are still far from met. For instance, only 39% of infants in developing countries are exclusively breastfed. Lack of awareness amongst mothers, and lack of support from health workers and communities, is largely responsible.

UNICEF recommends that babies are exclusively breastfed from birth to six months, and then breastfed alongside age-appropriate, complementary feeding for two years and beyond. Achieving this target would give an extraordinary boost to the Millennium Development Goals. It is estimated that almost one-fifth of all child deaths could be prevented if this target is achieved, saving over two million children per year.

References

1. The Innocenti report can be found on the UNICEF website.
   This file is a 58 page pdf file (size 1.1MB)
2. See UNICEF’s online campaign

THE RIGHT TO BREASTFEED
New breastfeeding bill for England and Wales

David Kidney, Labour MP for Stafford introduced a new bill, “Breastfeeding etc. bill” to the House of Commons on November 8th, 2005. If his bill were to become law, it would mean that, as in Scotland, it would be an offence to stop women breastfeeding their babies in public places.

During the reading of the bill, he told MPs that he was setting out to “address some deep weaknesses in this society’s attitude to breastfeeding”. He emphasised, “It is to stop a form of discrimination that stops parents from feeding their children in public areas.” A section of the bill entitled “Promotion and support of breastfeeding” calls for the support and encouragement of breastfeeding and the dissemination of information “promoting and encouraging breastfeeding”. “This is a bill about the health benefits of breast feeding, ensuring parents know about those benefits and have support to take it up,” Mr Kidney said.

The bill also applies to the feeding of babies and young children with bottles, and is relevant for all children under two years old.

Read the full text of the bill

'Breastfeeding in the News' is compiled and written by Cathe Heron, Assistant Editor.