B

By PATRICIA McCORMICK

UNITED NATIONS (UPI)
cradles around the world

A dispute rocking
pits mother’s milk

against infant formula — and it appears breast-
feeding is gaining on the bottle.

At least, as the first course
of nutrition for newborns.

The back-to-the-breast
movement is led by the
American Academy of
Pediatrics, the Intemational
Pediatrics Association and
the World Health
Organization.

In the United States, the
National Centre for Health
Statistics reports only 25 per
cent of new mothers left the
hospitals with baby on the
breast in 1973. By 1975, the
figure was up to 35 per cent.

Now it’s 51 per cent. Among
the college-educated, it’s 67
per cent; and among those
with incomes $15,000 and
up, it’s 55.2 per cent.

This is a huge shift from
the situation in the 1950s and
1960s when bottle-feeding
was the forte. During that
era, doctors gave mothers
pills to dry up breasts soon
after delivery. ;

When they Ieft the
hospital, new mothers back
then were armed with infant
nutrition booklets by baby

eeding win
in formula dispute

food makers. Often, samples
were included. -

A recent report in
“Pediatrics,” journal of the
American Academy of
Pediatrics, said the swing to
the breastfeeding has been
increasing at all ages and
among women from all
socio-economic groups.

The report said the in-
crease has been ac-
companied by a decrease in
the proportion of mothers
giving their babics whole
cow's milk, evaporated milk
or prepared formulas.

“The decreasing use of
prepared formulas has been
restricted to younger infants |
and to non-iron-fortified

formulas — whereas use of
iron-fortified formulas has
increased at all ages.”

In the world, the World
Health Organization is
putting more muscle into its
breastfeeding crusade.

More than 100 countries
have voted approval of the
WHO's international code of
marketing for “breastmilk
substitutes, which
aim, in = particular, § al
breastmilk substitutes or
infant formula, a $1.4 billion
a year business. The WHO
target is marketing practices
of formula producers in third
world countrics — where
water isn't always pure.

CONTINUED ON PAGE C3

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Father's role is not the same: Page C8