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IBFAN – International Baby Food Action Network

WHA78 - EB156 (2025)
WHA78 - EB156 (2025)

GETTING READY FOR 78TH WHA 2025: DIGITAL MARKETING AND NUTRITION TARGETS

IBFAN is supporting Brazil’s Zero Draft Resolution on Digital Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes that we hope will be adopted with no weakening at the 78th World Health Assembly next May.
IBFAN is also supporting a Resolution calling for an extension of the Nutrition targets.

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Codex 2024 - News1
CCNFSDU44 - CODEX

EU AND SWITZERLAND TRY TO TACKLE SWEETNESS – THE UK WARY OF ‘PROBIOTIC’ CLAIMS, CODEX STARTS NEW WORK ON BABY FOODS

IBFAN fighting to protect children from harmful, sweetened, Ultra-Processed, plastic-wrapped products and probiotic additives and claims.

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Public Eye
PROTEST AT VEVEY:

MORE THAN 100,000 SIGNATURES AGAINST NESTLÉ’S DOUBLE STANDARD OVER ADDED SUGAR IN BABY FOOD

105,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop adding sugar to its baby food products marketed in lower-income countries. It was handed over today at the multinational’s headquarters in Vevey, where the NGOs Public Eye, IBFAN and EKO dumped the symbolic equivalent of 10 million sugar cubes, representing the added sugar consumed each day by babies fed with Cerelac cereals

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Codex 2024
CCNFSDU44 - CODEX

AT CODEX, IBFAN PROTECTING CHILD HEALTH FROM SWEETENED UPFS IN PLASTIC PACKAGING AND THEIR SNEAKY PROBIOTIC PROMISES!

The 44th Session of the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses will be held in Dresden, Germany on 2 – 6 October 2024

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Codex PRESS RELEASE (IBFAN)
COUNTERING INDUSTRY
Guidance

COUNTERING INDUSTRY ARGUMENTS AGAINST CODE IMPLEMENTATION: EVIDENCE AND RIGHTS-BASED RESPONSES

This resource for policymakers and breastfeeding advocates presents the 36 most common arguments the baby food industry uses to oppose Code legislation, alongside responses and counter-arguments based in scientific evidence and international human rights law

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PUBLIC EYE
Sugar in baby food

IBFAN AND PUBLIC EYE URGE SWISS GOVERNMENT TO INTERVENE, PETITION LAUNCHED

The release in April of the Public Eye/IBFAN exposé of how Nestlé markets Cerelac and Nido as beneficial for child development, despite containing high levels of added sugar have prompted widespread

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The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) is an international coalition aiming to improve maternal and infant and young child health through the protection, support and promotion of breastfeeding and optimal complementary feeding. It was formed by a small group of organisations and activists, concerned about the high mortality of formula fed babies, who came together in 1979 at the end of a WHO/UNICEF joint meeting on infant and young child feeding. The meeting had recommended an international code to regulate the marketing of infant formula, bottles and teats and other products marketed as breastmilk substitutes.

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OUR FOCUS AREAS

INTERNATIONAL CODE
CODEX ALIMENTARIUS
CONTAMINANTS IN BABY FOODS
HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

IBFAN'S SEVEN PRINCIPLES

Click on the images or click here for more information

1

Infants and young children  everywhere to have the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

2

Families, and in particular women and children, have the right to access adequate and nutritious food and sufficient and affordable water.

3

Women have the right to breastfeed and to make informed decisions about infant and young child feeding.

4

Women have the right to full support to breastfeed for two years or more and to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months.

5

All people have the right to access quality health care services and information free of commercial influence.

6

Health workers and consumers have the right to be protected from commercial influence that may distort their judgment and decisions.

7

People have the right to advocate for change that protects, promotes, and supports basic health, in international solidarity.


NEWS IBFAN

MATERNITY PROTECTION

State of Maternity Protection in 97 countries

An increasing number of women are entering the job market and they need maternity protection to make a balance between their productive and reproductive roles to take care of themselves, their children and their families.

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IBFAN Position Paper on Maternity Protection at Work

This paper presents IBFAN’s position on maternity protection at work and the tools for advocacy needed to increase the implementation of measures that enable mothers to participate as equals in the workplace while exercising their reproductive rights to breastfeed.

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Breastfeeding after returning to work or study

Many women find ways to continue breastfeeding their baby. Employers and  course providers have certain obligations towards breastfeeding women to support your return to work or study.

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100 years of maternity protection

100 years ago, the ILO adopted the first-ever international standard on maternity protection. Since that Convention, the definition of maternity protection has expanded and its importance has become more widely appreciated – including as an essential element in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of good health, gender equality, decent work and economic growth. But, despite this progress, many mothers and mothers-to-be still face serious challenges in the workplace.

VIDEO ‘100 years of maternity protection’,  from the channel International Labour Organization, published on YouTube on 8/11/2019.

The IBFAN network is a global coalition formed by nearly 200 citizen groups in over 100 countries

Learn more about the IBFAN network in various parts of the world. Access the following websites or social networks, and soon we will have more links here:

© 2024 IBFAN. All Rights Reserved.