Ministry of Health supports nursing mothers

The issue of mothers abandoningbreastfeeding decided to raise at the state level. The Ministry of Health has developed clinical guidelines that state the inadmissibility of advertising breast-milk substitutes and a group briefing for women on artificial feeding. A set of measures to promote breastfeeding is being prepared by the Nation's Health League. The Public Chamber of the Russian Federation will host public hearings on this topic.

National coordinator of the WHO / UNICEF Child-Friendly Hospital Initiative, Lyubov Abolyan told Izvestia that in Russia, only 40% of infants aged six months receive mother's milk.

Almost all Russian women have a positive attitude to breastfeeding, are set to breastfeed and begin to feed their babies in maternity hospitals. The main reason for the further rejection of this is the lack of competence of medical personnel in matters of breastfeeding.

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The Russian Ministry of Health told Izvestia that refusal from breastfeeding is a worldwide problem (in connection with which WHO has developed a global strategy for feeding infants and young children), and Russia is no exception in this regard. At the same time, we pay special attention to the popularization of breastfeeding.

- The country implements the National Strategy for feeding children of the first year of life, developed by the professional community. The strategy offers a number of measures aimed at increasing the coverage of breastfeeding, and the introduction of public non-recognition of the use of its substitutes, the press service of the department explained.

In particular, the Ministry of Health, together with industry experts, has developed clinical recommendations that state the inadmissibility of advertising breast-milk substitutes and group briefing of women on artificial feeding.

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A set of measures to popularize breastfeeding is being prepared by the League of the Health of the Nation, vice-president of the organization Viktor Antyukhov told Izvestia.

- The President of the “League of Health of the Nation” Leo Boqueria instructed us to prepare public hearings, which we plan to hold in October at the site of the Public Chamber. The result of these hearings will be the development of appropriate recommendations for the legislative and executive authorities, the media and the Ministry of Health, he said.

The Ministry of Health reported that they support the initiative of the "League of Health of the Nation." Recommendations will concern, among other things, the education of doctors. It is assumed that doctors will be taught to advise women who have any problems with breastfeeding.

Doctors warn that refusal to breast-feed in the future can weaken the baby's immunity and cognitive functions.Anna Bazanova, head of the department for young children at the Children's Medical Center of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, noted that breast milk is 100% of all the nutritional needs of a child up to six months old, 50% of the needs of a baby from six months to a year and up to 30% of all nutritional needs of a child from year to year up to three years. According to the pediatrician, breastfeeding should be possible, if possible, up to two years.

“Woman’s milk, in fact, is living tissue. It contains a huge amount of beneficial bacteria, oligosaccharides, which are necessary for the development of the brain, vitamins and trace elements. They also exist in cow or goat milk, but are aimed at the health of a kid or calf. The kids and calves immediately after birth are on their feet. They need other substances - a lot of protein. “A human baby needs substances for the development of the brain, first of all, and all of them are in mother’s breast milk,” says Bazanova.

According to regular monitoring by the Ministry of Health, from 2011 to 2016, the number of children aged three to five months receiving breastfeeding increased by 13.3% to 757.7 thousand children. And age from six months to a year - by 7% to 719.2 thousand.