U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health Officials
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.
Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.
Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.
James Estrin/The New York Times
American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.
When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.
The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.
The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the United States.
Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.
“We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, since the late 1980s.
“What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the best way to protect infant and young child health,” she said.
In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them.
Jose Jacome/EPA, via Shutterstock
The State Department declined to respond to questions, saying it could not discuss private diplomatic conversations. The Department of Health and Human Services, the lead agency in the effort to modify the resolution, explained the decision to contest the resolution’s wording but said H.H.S. was not involved in threatening Ecuador.
“The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in an email. “We recognize not all women are able to breast-feed for a variety of reasons. These women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.” The spokesman asked to remain anonymous in order to speak more freely.
Although lobbyists from the baby food industry attended the meetings in Geneva, health advocates said they saw no direct evidence that they played a role in Washington’s strong-arm tactics. The $70 billion industry, which is dominated by a handful of American and European companies, has seen sales flatten in wealthy countries in recent years, as more women embrace breast-feeding. Over all, global sales are expected to rise by 4 percent in 2018, according to Euromonitor, with most of that growth occurring in developing nations.
The intensity of the administration’s opposition to the breast-feeding resolution stunned public health officials and foreign diplomats, who described it as a marked contrast to the Obama administration, which largely supported W.H.O.’s longstanding policy of encouraging breast-feeding.
During the deliberations, some American delegates even suggested the United States might cut its contribution to the W.H.O., several negotiators said. Washington is the single largest contributor to the health organization, providing $845 million, or roughly 15 percent of its budget, last year.
The confrontation was the latest example of the Trump administration siding with corporate interests on numerous public health and environmental issues.
In talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Americans have been pushing for language that would limit the ability of Canada, Mexico and the United States to put warning labels on junk food and sugary beverages, according to a draft of the proposal reviewed by The New York Times.
During the same Geneva meeting where the breast-feeding resolution was debated, the United States succeeded in removing statements supporting soda taxes from a document that advises countries grappling with soaring rates of obesity.
The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart a W.H.O. effort aimed at helping poor countries obtain access to lifesaving medicines. Washington, supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has long resisted calls to modify patent laws as a way of increasing drug availability in the developing world, but health advocates say the Trump administration has ratcheted up its opposition to such efforts.
The delegation’s actions in Geneva are in keeping with the tactics of an administration that has been upending alliances and long-established practices across a range of multilateral organizations, from the Paris climate accord to the Iran nuclear deal to Nafta.
Ilona Kickbusch, director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said there was a growing fear that the Trump administration could cause lasting damage to international health institutions like the W.H.O. that have been vital in containing epidemics like Ebola and the rising death toll from diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the developing world.
“It’s making everyone very nervous, because if you can’t agree on health multilateralism, what kind of multilateralism can you agree on?” Ms. Kickbusch asked.
Peter Klaunzer/EPA, via Shutterstock
A Russian delegate said the decision to introduce the breast-feeding resolution was a matter of principle.
“We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,” said the delegate, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
He said the United States did not directly pressure Moscow to back away from the measure. Nevertheless, the American delegation sought to wear down the other participants through procedural maneuvers in a series of meetings that stretched on for two days, an unexpectedly long period.
In the end, the United States was largely unsuccessful. The final resolution preserved most of the original wording, though American negotiators did get language removed that called on the W.H.O. to provide technical support to member states seeking to halt “inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children.”
The United States also insisted that the words “evidence-based” accompany references to long-established initiatives that promote breast-feeding, which critics described as a ploy that could be used to undermine programs that provide parents with feeding advice and support.
Elisabeth Sterken, director of the Infant Feeding Action Coalition in Canada, said four decades of research have established the importance of breast milk, which provides essential nutrients as well as hormones and antibodies that protect newborns against infectious disease.
A 2016 study in The Lancet found that universal breast-feeding would prevent 800,000 child deaths a year across the globe and yield $300 billion in savings from reduced health care costs and improved economic outcomes for those reared on breast milk.
Scientists are loath to carry out double-blind studies that would provide one group with breast milk and another with breast milk substitutes. “This kind of ‘evidence-based’ research would be ethically and morally unacceptable,” Ms. Sterken said.
Abbott Laboratories, the Chicago-based company that is one of the biggest players in the $70 billion baby food market, declined to comment.
Nestlé, the Switzerland-based food giant with significant operations in the United States, sought to distance itself from the threats against Ecuador and said the company would continue to support the international code on the marketing of breast milk substitutes, which calls on governments to regulate the inappropriate promotion of such products and to encourage breast-feeding.
In addition to the trade threats, Todd C. Chapman, the United States ambassador to Ecuador, suggested in meetings with officials in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, that the Trump administration might also retaliate by withdrawing the military assistance it has been providing in northern Ecuador, a region wracked by violence spilling across the border from Colombia, according to an Ecuadorean government official who took part in the meeting.
The United States Embassy in Quito declined to make Mr. Chapman available for an interview.
“We were shocked because we didn’t understand how such a small matter like breast-feeding could provoke such a dramatic response,” said the Ecuadorean official, who asked not to be identified because she was afraid of losing her job.
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"Save the Babies"!!!
but only if corporate profits are protected first....
While eating dinner in a restaurant with my daughter she fed her baby. A man politely asked her if she could feed her baby in the restroom. She firmly told him to go eat his dinner in the restroom because "my baby is eating his dinner in the restaurant". I was really proud of her.
Good for her, everyone likes to hear babies nursing while they eat their dinner. LOL
sarc
I hear that "Breast Pumps" and "bottles" were invented a few years ago. This women should try it. It actually works !
It's virtually silent, so not sure what "sounds" you're referring to. If you're saying a baby crying, then of course, the parent should either get them to calm down or remove them from the restaurant.
I would rather hear a baby smacking its lips than screaming at the top of its lungs
Nursing babies are not that loud. But crying babies are.
What's wrong with straight from the tap?
Nothing when at home. Anywhere else...well....it would be a "Considerate of others" thingy, especially in a restaurant. Being "Prepared" isn't a hard thing to do, unless your just fucking lazy. I suppose this women just didn't give-a-shit.
So... She should pump her breasts in the restaurant? Not my girl. She got a knitted cap for him that's all flesh toned and has a nipple on top that he can wear while eating. (I'll give you all a chance to think about that.)
Awww, wussamatter? Does the sight of a boob give you the willies? Funny thing is that as a bystander you would have to look really hard to catch a glimpse of it.
Luv boobs, when it's for me. Do you like watching Grown Men sucking on a boob in public ?
As for this incident, uncouth by the women.
And Liberals hate Trump for what they say is inconsiderate.
That statement was denser than a solid concrete wall.
.
Loudon Wainwright "Rufus Is A Tit Man"
What a bizarre comment. What does it have to do with anything?
Some women don't let down to the pump as well, and a baby empties a breast more efficiently than a pump in general, which helps to maintain a good supply.
Sorry it bothers you that not all visible boobs are for your pleasure, but I'd have to call that a "you" problem.
Think about it.
If it flows easy for the baby, it will flow easy using the pump. Been there with my wife with ALL our kids on that. You pump, you date, you freeze for thawing later. It's called creating a "supply" for the "Fun Times" one still wants to have when itty bitty's are involved. It ain't hard.
Sounds like some people have too many hang-ups.
Why do you?
I know....right ?
I have a hang up about people talking on their cell phones loudly in a restaurant. I'm such a bitch huh !
Well of course she should be prepared, with a baby blanket thrown over the nursing child and exposed boob to be considerate to other customers at the restaurant. But saying she can't nurse quietly, not exposing herself, while enjoying a meal with others is just silly.
Exactly.
Everyone of the members in my family would NEVER consider doing something like that even at our own dinner table, let alone in a public EATING place.
Bottles were a great invention, and still in use today.
You said it, I didn't.
Well that's YOUR family. What's the big deal?
Nice "mansplaining." Women really love that (maybe what passes for them in your life actually do).
I think I love your daughter!
I love how much this bothers prudes and Christian extremists. A real shame that federal law protects the right to nurse your kid at work and virtually all states protect the right to nurse your kid in public, eh?
I was there, as an actual breastfeeding mother. Also, please do a little research - this is common knowledge among lactation consultants. As is nipple confusion - some kids won't take the breast after having a bottle, because a bottle lets milk flow more easily.
I'm not even too picky about nursing mothers using a blanket. Some kids won't eat under one, and who can blame them? It's July, for cryin' out loud.
Once the baby latches on, there's pretty much nothing exposed.
"A recent Harvard University study concluded that roughly 3.3 thousand lives per year would be saved in the USA alone if optimum breastfeeding advice were adopted by mothers.
Some of the scientific claims we have heard about the benefits of breastfeeding suggest you can protect your baby from developing allergies, boost your child's intelligence, protect your child from obesity, reduce your stress level and your risk of postpartum depression and may reduce your risk of some types of cancer.
According to UNICEF in 1999 , if every baby were exclusively breastfed from birth, an estimated 1.5 million lives would be saved globally each year. And not just saved, but enhanced, because breast milk is the perfect food for a baby's first six months of life -- no manufactured product can equal it."
While bottles have been a great invention, there's nothing quite like the real thing. Why begrudge a child their health just because of your personal discomfort? Should we make all American women wear burkas now too because of some mens discomfort with their bare ankles and faces? Women show far more skin at the beach every day of the year in the US then gets shown when a women discreetly breastfeeds her baby.
Where your opinion is concerned you couldn't be more right and more power to her.
I heard that ball gags predate either by centuries.
It seems he thinks he's in his shrink's office.
The Pence Rule!
We all love babies. They melt our brains.
Nothing is more brain-melting than a baby greedily going after that good mother's milk!
Exactly. Just as I don't care if Muslims are offended by the sight of a woman's skin, I also don't care if Yosemite Sam is offended by my grandson eating his dinner.
Breast Milk is breast milk. How it's delivered is a nothing burger of an argument.
I was right by my wife's side too....Pump, Storing and dating all her breast milk through 3 kids.
Your point ?
When ya gotta go to the john, just whip it out under the dinner table. After all, it's just a "Natural Thing".
Was it ?
It's like YOU know !
And ?
"Well that's YOUR family."
Just mine ?
Nice family. /s.
"Skin-to-skin contact between mothers and newborns immediately after birth can be used to promote breastfeeding and may give babies a better start in life, according to a new review of existing evidence.
Women who had skin-to-skin contact with their naked babies right after delivery were more likely to breastfeed longer and be breastfeeding months later than women who didn’t have their babies placed on their skin right away, the researchers found."
"When the baby is in skin-to-skin contact with his mother, Bergman says, a natural process unfolds. “It stimulates a specific part of the newborn brain, so that two things happen. The baby will move to the breast, self-attach and feed; and secondly, the baby will open his eyes and gaze at his mother,” he says. The first step (getting milk) allows the baby to continue developing physically, while the second step ensures emotional and social development. “The mother’s body is the baby’s natural habitat, the place where development happens,” he adds."
Again I ask, why are you so hostile towards women and babies that you want to risk their development just to appease your own personal opinions about what is or isn't modest? Why not err on the side of personal freedom?
Great Family. WE...practice "consideration's" of each other. "WE" understand not everyone of us is the "Same". We also use the designated restroom when we have to go, and excuse ourselves when we have to leave the dinner table for a few.
There's a time and place for EVERYTHING. Why is that so hard to understand ?
Seems "Spoiled Brat" is the way of those that won't understand others not wanting this at their choice of food consumption. Maybe ones that will do anything anywhere, should carry a sign to warn others in the restaurant that they will be "Feeding" ? That should go over well with the owner.
The proper term is, "snowflake". You seem to be very easily offended.
Breasts are an affront to real family values, didn't you know that?
Nah...."Bitch" works.
If you weren't the one producing milk, you're still mansplaining. And I doubt you're a lactation consultant, either. You don't display the knowledge required to be one. Just personal opinion, which you attempt to pass off as knowledge via mansplaining.
You found a woman's breasts offensive. You could have looked away and minded your own, but you chose to get offended, instead. You think she should have deferred to your discomfort.
I don't like your mansplaining. By your own standards, you should cease and desist, rather than make people uncomfortable with your inaccurate information and determination to offend.
I await your departure.
The time for feeding a baby is when the baby is hungry. The place is wherever baby and baby's food supply are in close proximity. Else you get to listen to a screaming baby.
What these Christian extremists really want to do is drop a burqa over the woman and her infant.
It's a terrible inconvenience for some rightwing prudes. Whenever they see something like that, they need to immediately go jerk off.
You mentioned YOUR family. Do you speak for other families now?
Babies usually don't care about things like times and places. When they're hungry, they want to be fed-NOW.
So hungry babies are "spoiled brats" now? Nice. Seems not everyone has such a hangup about like you do either.
And some people probably won't notice or won't care. Only those with a stick up their @ss will.
That's the key: Women's behavior is for men's convenience.
It seems to me that those who are most keen on forcing women to give birth to babies are also the ones who want those babies to go hungry if they happen to be in public.
Gee, I'm starting to think it's all really about controlling the women.
Oh!
Works for me.
Some "Fathers" are more involved than others.
Just "Color Me there" at every one of my wife's moments.
Breastfeeding, or the lack of it, is a public health concern. Pregnant or post-partum women should be encouraged to breastfeed and informed about its benefits. Breastfeeding is also free. Granted, some women may not be able to breastfeed for multiple reasons and formula is both an alternative and a supplement. How anyone can be opposed to breastfeeding is beyond me.
Trump's State Department isn't opposed to breastfeeding.
It's just that breastfeeding mothers don't make political contributions - money - like baby-formula manufacturers.
Yeah, but women might go and demand breaks to nurse or pump during the work day, or a place to pump, and we can't have those healthy habits interfering with work, now, can we?
I think you forgot the sarcasm tag. lol
And who gave those infants time off for lunch anyway? Back to the assembly line!
I knew you'd spot it.
I covered for my dispatcher 30 years ago when she pumped at work while her baby was at home. Once she let the installers know why I was helping her, they all took on a combined paternal ownership and ended up making both of our jobs easier. It was an incredible team bonding experience that continued well past the duration of her baby's liquid diet. Thanks Carmela, for letting us be your work family and taking the harsh edge off a daily nightmare job. It's a memory I'll always treasure, along with the other guys, I'm sure.
I'm getting better at it.
That's sweet of you guys to all pitch in and help a nursing mother out. Kudos to you!
Ditto.
Carmela was a lucky woman, with you guys having her back.
Cool story and bravo to the guys!
So the US threatens smaller countries with trade retaliation to protect corporations. How cool is that and here we are whining that China is taking advantage of us.
But when a big boy (Russia) introduced the bill what did we do..What any school yard bully would do, nothing.
Gotta protect those corporations.
It amuses me that Donald's good buddy Vladimir totally hung him out to dry!
Got a good laugh out of it.
This is how Trump picks his battles? Where are all the total fucking morons on this site who blindly fellate Donald Trump on a daily basis? I want to hear from them about why anything in this article is logical move.
A couple weeks ago my wife and I were walking around downtown. The sidewalks were quite busy, and we were mindlessly people watching and chatting while we walked. Up ahead I see a woman with a baby, and my natural instinct was to catch a glimpse of the baby, because I love babies. Turns out that she was nursing and it didn't even occur to me, because it's not a very common practice in such a bustling environment. It didn't bother me at all, but the moment I figured out what I was staring at I looked away and happened to lock eyes with her husband. He seemed to have a look on his face that said "stop staring at my wife's boob." If there is anything upsetting about breast feeding in public, imo, it's the expectation that everyone will immediately know what you are doing and will pretend you are invisible. If you can't handle that someone might accidentally see your boob, then go find somewhere a little more private than a busy sidewalk.
Cool story... that has probably happened, more or less precisely, to all of us.
If public breastfeeding was more widely practiced, encouraged, or accepted, it wouldn't even be an issue at all. no one would really notice or even care.
It's time is coming and that agenda will be pushed like all other agendas are.
Times change, with time.
Except for some of the mental midgets.
What agenda? I didn't know the issue of breastfeeding was an agenda.
Not all change is bad.
.
.
Not all change is bad.
I agree but I dont care to see people dont much personal things in public.
I was taught there is a time and a place for such things, and the dinner table wasn't it.
It was when my kids were born. I was kinda pushed to nurse them. I had difficulties so I went to the bottle. They're fine...except for that little facial tick.
It's actually kind of amazing that breastfeeding in public was ever stigmatized here, but not surprising at all that the origins for that stigma are rooted in racism. In most of the world it's a non-issue and in the US it's only been an issue since WWII.
Education and promotion about breastfeeding doesn't seem too bad to me.
We need to promote it not just for kids. Breastfeeding helps induce uterine contractions that help stop or slow postpartum bleeding, helps new moms lose the baby weight, and lowers the risk of breast cancer in mothers who nurse.
We should be removing as many obstacles to breastfeeding as we possibly can, and prudery is one of those obstacles.
That's because, unlike every piece of goo in the Trumpsewer, you're a human being.
Careful, you might get me a reputation, LOL
Not to mention it facilitates infant bonding, immune health, and brain development. There is no downside to it.
Actually there is, the corporations can't make any money that way..../s
Oh the horror! Why didn't I think of that?
Every time we're tempted to think Trumpscum couldn't get any scummier, they jump out to prove us wrong. Apart from the standard disgusting reasons and tactics used to get its way on this immoral and dangerous (to women and babies especially in 3rd world countries) they did give us some new ammunition to use on two subjects:
1. More evidence that Putin owns Trumpfuck's stinking ass:
"In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them."
2. And it turns out that Trumpfucks are pro-choice when it suits:
"...women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health..."
These immoral, deplorable, disgusting, soulless, fascist pigs need to be frog-marched en masse off to jail as soon as the get turfed out of office.
My x refused to breast feed in public. Not sure why other than she was never very proud of her boobs. Personally it doesn't bother me in the least if a woman pulls out a boob to feed her kid, it's just not a big deal. Hell, since breasts are not considered sexual organs, I think they should be able to go topless just like males do. Though I admit I may be biased.. LOL
Exactly! Why some people make such a big deal out of nothing is beyond me.