by Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Mon. Nov. 11, 2024
The Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) officially launched a revised version of its National Breastfeeding Policy 2024-2034 on Monday, November 11.
The official launch replaces the ministry’s previous policy which was instituted nearly 30 years ago – 28 years to be exact, and promotes breastfeeding on demand by increasing the rate of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life.
“The last time the breastfeeding policy was launched in 1996, it’s 28 years too long,” said the Minister of Health and Wellness, Hon. Kevin Bernard. “In any developing country, in any country, when you set policies, especially health policies, it should be within 10 years, because it has to be reviewed. As time changes, you need to adapt to certain things; you need to adapt to certain conditions,” he added.
“When we look at breastfeeding, we see who is involved in the breastfeeding process. We see nurses; we see nutritionists; we see health educators; we see our directors in terms of advocacy legislation; and we also have our stakeholders and partners. So, it’s the entire team here today to do this launch,” said Robyn Daly-Faber, Technical Advisor for the Nutrition Unit at the MOHW.
Members of the Ministry of Health and Wellness along with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) formulated the policy over three years.
“We were able to develop this new policy. One that is progressive, one that is looking at ensuring that we are reaching our targets,” said Minister Bernard.
He additionally highlighted that Belize stands at 33% when it comes to the percentage of children under the age of 6 months old being breastfed with the implementation of the national policy, which is lower than the 50% target the World Health Organization (WHO) set for countries.
“We need to do more, so it will involve everyone. It will include education. It will include the human development aspect of our ministry, the Ministry of Health. It will also be our mothers and our children, our fathers, because we need to ensure that from an educational side, people understand that breastfeeding is very critical. It’s important for a child’s growth,” Minister Bernard noted.
According to Daly-Faber, work has been in the pipeline to formalize breastfeeding in the workplace with over 50 different workplaces throughout the country.
“A woman who is breastfeeding goes through a lot, and we advocate and influence employers to support women who are breastfeeding. So, the support can come in different ways. They can have a space; some places have established an entire room for breastfeeding, and other places have allowed a space where, a private space for a woman [where she] can pump her breast; or the child can be brought to the facility; and then we also have other support that, for example having the woman have time off, flexible work schedule. These are all parts of the support that we ask employers to consider when looking at workplace support for breastfeeding women,” she said.