Breast milk is a newborn's primary source of nutrition upon delivery. It contains a number of antibodies, digestive enzymes and macronutrients vital for a baby's growth and development. Yet for some reason, an alarming number of new mothers are more reluctant to breastfeed in comparison to a few years ago. In an attempt to arrest this trend and increase breastfeeding numbers among new mothers, the ministry of health and wellness has revised its National Breastfeeding Policy, after 28 years. Nutritionist Robyn Daly Faber told us more about what this new policy entails.

Robyn Daly Faber, Nutritionist, Ministry of Health and Wellness
"We are launching our national breast-feeding policy 2024 to 2034, the policy speaks to, for promotion support, and protection for breast-feeding. as you all know, breast-feeding is the first food that an infant gets and it is the first form of nutrition so when we look at breast-feeding also we see who all is involved in the process of breast-feeding we see nurses we see nutritionist we see health educators and we see our directors in terms of advocacy legislation and we also have our stakeholders and partners so it is the entire team here today to do this launch."

"So the advocacy and the promotion and the education for mothers for women continue even though the policy has been outdated the actions have not changed they have just been modified a little bit so the new policy speaks to also looking at the code the international code for marketing breast milk substitutes and with that these speaks to the advertising and the marketing of breast milk's substitutes like formula or milk things that would deter a mother from wanting to breastfeed so that is included in the new policy and different strategies that we want to do for advocacy also support for breastfeeding in emergency that was lacking from the old policy."

Aside from advocacy and promotion, Daly says that they have reached out to a number of organizations to implement safe spaces at the workplace to breastfeed, in hopes that this would encourage more new mothers who have to continue to breastfeed after returning to work.

Robyn Daly Faber, Nutritionist, Ministry of Health and Wellness
"So we have already reached out to more than 50 organizations throughout Belize district and other districts as well we educate, and we sensitize the employer about the necessary factors that a woman who is breast-feeding goes through and we advocate and influence employers to support women who are breast-feeding so they can come in different ways they can have a space, some places have established an entire room for breast-feeding other places have allowed a space, a private space where woman can or the child can be brought to the facility and then we also have other support for example having the woman have time off a flexible work schedule. These are all parts of support that we ask for employers to consider when we are looking at workplace support for women that are breast-feeding."

Both The Minister of Health and Wellness and the Minister of Human Development And Families attended the launch today to show their support for a collaborative approach:

Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Minister of Human Development, Families
"I give complete kudos and full support for this new breastfeeding policy because as minister for families I can say that giving our babies and excellent start with the breastfeeding is the direction that we need to go and I fully support trying to get to the 50% by 2030 that the ministry has pledged. And so I was very honored to be here supporting minister Kevin Bernard and all of the ministry people who put it together I'm very pleased to do so."

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health and Wellness
"And so it will involve everyone, it will involve education. It will involve our human development aspect as a ministry. It will involve the ministry of health, of course, but it will also involve our mothers and children. Our fathers included because we need to ensure that from the educational side, people have to understand that breast-feeding is very critical."