Breastfeeding week launched in HN
Wednesday 01/08/2012 17:00
VGP – A breastfeeding week was jointly launched on August 1 in Hanoi by the Ministry of Health, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Alive and Thrive Initiative.
In Vietnam, the percentage of total breastfeeding is extremely low, said Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien. Around one in five under six-month old kids receive total breastfeeding.
Over the last decade, numerous efforts have been made to popularize breastfeeding but the ratio has yet been improved.
In 2010, around 20% of kids were totally breasted in their first six months.
This problem has led to serious malnutrition in children. One third of children have lower heights against their and millions of kids suffer from diseases like diarrhoea and pneumonia due to the lack of nutrition.
In addition, the children would be impacted in the long term like poor academic performance and intelligence development. This would affect social development in the future.
Under the motto “Mother’s milk today, tomorrow’s health”, the breastfeeding week highlights the commitment of the Vietnamese Government to urging communities to increase breastfeeding and reduce malnutrition rate in Vietnam.
UNICEF acting chief representative Jesper Moller stressed that with the adoption of six-month maternity leave, Vietnam has become a pioneer country to build laws which protect health for both mothers and children./.
By Khanh Phuong