Launch of IBFAN INFO

The International Baby Food Action Network is proud to launch its maiden issue of IBFAN INFO. The launch marks 20 years of effort to improve the health of women and their children by ensuring that the best, the most sustainable and the most secure way to nurture babies and young children is accessible for all.

Breastfeeding, the normal continuum from birth to childhood, needs no validation, and has been conclusively shown over and over again to be the cornerstone of infant and young child health. Feeding practices, either optimal or inadequate, have lasting repercussions. Of the 120 million infants born around the world every year, 1.5 million needless infant deaths result from babies not being breastfed and many more millions of children who will suffer the aftermath of malnutrition. Being breastfed confers protection unattainable by any other means; it is affordable to all. It must remain accessible to all.

After nearly 20 years of the efforts of many hard-working and committed people, much progress has been made. Awareness of the importance of breastfeeding is reaching more pregnant women and new mothers; more supportive hospital practices are in place; and more countries have taken measures to implement the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes. Yet the work needed to protect, support and promote breastfeeding remains “unfinished business.” Threats to undermine the seemingly fragile accomplishments are many, and much still needs to be accomplished to “globalize” the protective measures. These include the full implementation by governments of the International Code and of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the setting of standards for infant formula and complementary foods through the Codex Alimentarius process.

The elimination of commercial influence and inducements to artificial feeding by the infant foods industry remains a key struggle in IBFAN’s efforts to restore breastfeeding to its rightful place as the foundation for a child’s healthy growth and development. Clearly, industry’s unequivocal financial and political power to influence markets, governments, and health care systems, as well as international organizations, is a force to be reckoned with. But a factory-made, synthetic, canned substitute which achieves its legitimacy through manipulation is no contest to the superiority and simplicity of breastfeeding.

IBFAN’s newsletter, IBFAN INFO, will be yet another means by which we can strengthen our shared efforts to improve the health of women and their children. It will be a means to communicate the need to pursue our vigilance, to persevere in the monitoring of dangerous marketing practices, to carry on with our lobbying and advocacy, and to increase action needed so that breastfeeding will be accessible to all.

IBFAN INFO will be distributed world-wide and translated into Spanish, Portuguese and French.