World Breastfeeding Week mobilize health institutions in Brazil

Por Daniela Lessa

The 20ª World Breastfeeding Week (from 1st to 7th, August), promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO), will be celebrated in Brazil and Latin America with events at human milk banks that compose the Brazilian Human Milk Banks Network (rBLH) and the Ibero-american Program of Human Milk Banks (IberBLH).

The oficial openning of the Breastfeeding Week in Brasil will happen at August 1st, at Rio de Janeiro, with presence of the Health Minister, Alexandre Padilha, of the health secretaries of state and city of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Luiz Côrtes and Hans Dohmann, of the Unicef leader in Brazil, Gary Stahl, and of the coordinator of rBLH and IberBLH, João Aprígio Guerra de Almeida.  

The exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life is an international strategy to reduce children mortality. At Brasil, breastfeeding is also strategic and brazilian network of human milk banks received investments from Health Ministry and support from International Relations Ministry. So, its method was exported and it became a internacional example of success as social policy, recognized by institutions as WHO, Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), and recently, mentioned at the britanic journal The Guardian.     

Aprígio, the coordinator of rBLH and IberBLH, says that one of the most significative reason for mothers do not feed their babys exclusively with human milk at the first six months is related with the modern economy and the scientific advertising of the milk industries, that constantely informs that substitutive and complementary products are necessary, what is not truth."Biologicaly, weak milk does not exist", says Aprígio.