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[SANAA, 4 August 2008] - UNICEF's office in Yemen has expressed concern over the decline in breastfeeding, which it says is likely to lead to higher rates of malnutrition and death among the under-fives. Nassem Ur-Rehman, chief communications and information officer at UNICEF’s Sanaa office, said nearly half of Yemen's under-fives were malnourished: "The health of small children is bad and getting worse. A breastfeeding campaign is urgently needed." Speaking at a press briefing on 2 August to mark World Breastfeeding Week, he said Yemen - along with Djibouti and Sudan - had the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the region. Ur-Rehman listed the main reasons why breastfeeding was not as widespread as it could be: lack of family, social and government support; aggressive marketing by infant formula milk companies; and a lack of public breastfeeding facilities. Yemen’s malnutrition rate among the under-fives is one of the highest in the world: stunting stands at 53.1 percent, wasting at 12.5 percent and underweight at 45.6 percent, according to the Ministry of Health. UNICEF said the rate of “exclusive breastfeeding” (ensuring that the child is fed only on breast milk for the first six month’s of life) was 12 per cent. According to UNICEF's The State of the World's Children 2008, the rate of “exclusive breastfeeding” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was 28 percent, making it 10 percentage points below the average for developing countries. The MENA region is also lagging behind sub-Saharan Africa, where current rates are 30-39 percent. Infant mortality still high Ur-Rehman said breastfeeding was central to the prevention of health risk factors among infants. According to him, 84,000 infants die every year as a result of diseases such as diarrhoea (the main cause of death) and pneumonia (the second biggest cause of death). He said breastfeeding could help reduce these high death rates. Dhekra Annuzaili, UNICEF's nutrition programme officer, said under-five mortality rates had decreased from 139 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 102 per 1,000 live births in 2005. This was in part due to vaccination campaigns (eg polio) and drives to boost awareness about sanitation, malaria prevention and maternal health. However, more could be done on breastfeeding. The rate of “exclusive breastfeeding” had increased from 13 percent in 1991 to 17 percent in 1997, but had since fallen to 12 percent: Doctors and the media were not doing enough to promote breastfeeding, she said. Annuzaili said millions of dollars were spent annually on breast-milk substitutes. “Some 800,000 infants are born every year in Yemen and 1,056,000,000 riyals [US$5,280,000] are spent every year on bottle feeding [cost of bottles and teats only], and an additional 1,126,400,000 riyals [$5,632,000] on the cost of powdered milk," she said. Further information
pdf: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79601