NAFDAC intensifies awareness campaign on breast milk substitutes marketing code

In a bid to improve the knowledge, practice and attitude of Nigerians towards exclusive breastfeeding, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is intensifying its awareness campaign to ensure compliance with the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes (BMS) in the country.

NAFDAC’s Director General, Professor Mojishola Adeyeye spoke at a one-day sensitisation workshop on the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes organised in collaboration with Alive and Thrive FHI-360 for health editors in Lagos.

She said the continued violation of the International code of marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes (BMS) and national regulations by manufacturers of BMS products as one of the challenges facing full adoption of exclusive breastfeeding by Nigerians.

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Represented by Dr. Eva Edwards, Deputy Director, Food Safety and Applied Directorate Division of the agency, she declared that knowledge and lack of awareness of stakeholders including the media, has also contributed to the violations of the code.

Professor Adeyeye said that compliance to the code was essential to protect optimal infant and young child feeding through promotion, protection and support for exclusive breastfeeding.

Professor Adeyeye said the importance of the code had necessitated the agency to collaborate with relevant partners to aggressively address this unpleasant situation through interventions including effective sensitisation of all stakeholders.

The Director General noted that Nigeria voted for the adoption of the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes in 1981, adding that the country is expected to implement all its provisions in their entirety as a minimum requirement for its implementation through appropriate national measures including legislation.

In a presentation titled “Update on Infant and Young Child Nutrition Progress in Nigeria,” The Public Health Nutritionist, Federal Ministry of Health, Mrs Kobata Thompson told the editors that adequate nutrition during infancy and early childhood is fundamental to child’s survival, growth and development to full potential.

She said pregnancy to two years of age is a critical window of opportunity to prevent irreversible damages in the human life cycle.

According to her, “inadequate nutritional practices beginning with poor universal breastfeeding practices results in 33 per cent of deaths of the newborn due to initiation of breastfeeding within two to 23 hours of birth. In Nigeria, malnutrition contributes more than 50 per cent of death and occurs in the first years of life”

In another presentation, Mrs Ummulkhairi Bobboi, a NAFDAC assistant director while urging the media to rely only on NAFDAC for relevant information on its requirements, said company promotion reduces breastfeeding and increases the use of breast milk substitutes.

She added, “Without adequate code implementation and enforcement, breastfeeding rates will remain low in the country, leaving infants and young children at risk of morbidity and mortality.”

Also, Mrs Patricia Chizoba Monwuba, a retired Deputy Director, NAFDAC, said knowledge about the code and the importance of breastfeeding is extremely important for health workers because a woman’s choice about how she will feed her child is strongly influenced by the information she receives.

She declared, “The Code is primarily aimed at governments and infant companies to implement/enforce and comply with respectively, but in reality, it is the health workers who ultimately bear the responsibility for the success or failure of the code.”