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Email update 1 June 2017
UK General Election -
party policies on infant and young child feeding
News from the 70th World Health Assembly and the election of the new WHO Director General
UK General Election -
party policies on infant and young child feeding
Voters will go to the polls on 8 June 2017 to elect new Members of Parliament and so a new government.
Baby Milk Action has asked all political parties represented in national parliaments about their policies on infant and young child feeding. Our full letter is available here.
You will find the responses we have received here. The page also tells you how to contact the parties that have not answered – or visit our Twitter stream and re-tweet our calls for them to do so.
Our two questions are summarised below.
1. Will your party protect parents from aggressive marketing by baby feeding companies?
Monitoring evidence gathered for the Baby Feeding Law Group (BFLG) - a coalition of leading health professional and mother support groups - shows that formula and feeding bottle companies and retailers aggressively market their products to profiteer from parents that use infant formula and other breastmilk substitutes. They also aim to expand their market by undermining breastfeeding.
The World Health Assembly calls for an end to promotional claims on foods for infants and young children because they generally mislead parents and undermine independent information from health workers, mother support groups and expert sources such as NHS Choices. The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints about claims made for formulas and feeding bottles, showing that companies are not reliable sources of information. Independent sources of information are available.
The International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent, relevant WHA Resolutions aim to ensure that these products are as safe as possible and marketed responsibly. Full details of the changes required to UK legislation to bring it into line with the International Code and Resolutions are contained in the introduction to the Look What They’re Doing in the UK 2017 monitoring report, which profiles the major formula and feeding bottle companies and retailers.
Will your party pledge to fully implement the International Code and Resolutions and introduce systems to ensure that products sold on the UK market are independently scrutinised for safety?
2. Will your party fully implement the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding in the UK?
The UK supported the adoption of the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2002 and has renewed this support repeatedly at subsequent Assemblies.
The majority of mothers in the UK say they wanted to breastfeed for longer than they did. The policies required to support mothers to breastfeed for as long as they wish are well known and set out in the Global Strategy.
The World Breastfeeding Trends initiative (WBTi) assesses countries on their progress in implementing 10 key policy areas set out in the Global Strategy. While there has been some progress, the overall score for the UK puts it towards the bottom of the table comparing countries assessed so far (of 84 countries assessed by 2016, the UK sits at position 66 with a score of 50.5 out of 100).
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Lancet Breastfeeding Series reported in January 2016 that the UK has the worst breastfeeding rate in the world.
Will your party fully implement the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding in the UK, thereby supporting mothers to breastfeed for as long as they wish and improving the UK’s score in the next WBTi assessment?
Visit our Election 2017 page for responses received so far and to encourage other parties to send their answers.
Donations in support of Baby Milk Action’s work are welcome.
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