The WHO breastfeeding resolution behind the debate

Story highlightsThe Trump administration reportedly wanted to water down an international resolution promoting breastfeedingUNICEF and WHO recommend exclusive breastfeeding from within an hour of birth until the baby is 6 months old (CNN)An international resolution promoting breastfeeding was at the center of negotiations between delegates from the United States and other countries during this year’s meeting of the World Health Assembly (the decision-making body of the World Health Organization), held in the spring.Some US delegates reportedly wanted to water down the resolution, while others wanted to maintain strong language, leading to a debate on the floor, seen in an online webcast.In the end, “delegates at this year’s World Health Assembly unanimously renewed their commitment to invest and scale up nutrition policies and programmes to improve infant and young child feeding. We are not in a position to comment on exchanges between different delegations,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jašarević wrote in an email. JUST WATCHEDNYT: US opposes breastfeeding resolutionReplayMore Videos …MUST WATCH NYT: US opposes breastfeeding resolution 00:55Despite the controversy, in the medical world, breastfeeding is not such a contentious topic.”WHO recommends breastmilk as the best source of nourishment for infants and young children. Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months is one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival,” Jašarević said. Read More”If all infants under the age of six months were exclusively breastfed, we estimate that about 820,000 child lives would be saved every year,” he said. “Today, however, globally, only 40% of infants under six months of age are exclusively breastfed.”The countries that breastfeed the most and leastResponding to the account of the WHO resolution, US Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said in a statement that the US “has a long history of supporting mothers and breastfeeding around the world and is the largest bilateral donor of such foreign assistance programs.” “The United States was fighting to protect women’s abilities to make the best choices for the nutrition of their babies,” she said. “Many women are not able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons, these women should not be stigmatized; they should be equally supported with information and access to alternatives for the health of themselves and their babies.”President Donald Trump tweeted similar sentiments on Monday, posting that the US “strongly supports breastfeeding but we don’t believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty.”The original WHO resolution “does not in any way ‘deny access to infant formula,’ ” said Aunchalee Palmquist, an assistant professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health and the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. JUST WATCHEDBreastfeeding basics f