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      'Breast Is Best' an Unknown Concept for Many in China


      .



      By Ben Blanchard

      SHIJIAZHUANG, China (Reuters) Sept 17 - Zhang Lihong never considered 
that feeding her son Zhang Yangyi baby milk formula could have serious 
long-term health consequences by damaging his kidneys.

      For her, a housewife from the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, 
the adage that "breast is best" for a baby was an unknown concept.

      "I thought it would be better for his growth to have milk powder," 
Zhang said, outside the headquarters of China's Sanlu Group, now at the 
centre of a scandal about toxic milk powder.

      "I'll never feed it to him again," she added, waiting her turn to 
return the powder, which has already made more than 6,000 Chinese babies 
sick and killed three after it was contaminated with melamine.

      Experts have long recognised that breastfeeding is by far the best 
choice for infant feeding. The U.N.'s Children's Fund (UNICEF) says it can 
dramatically cut child deaths in developing countries, and is a big 
supporter.

      Multinational companies that make powdered milk, such as Nestle, say 
they support breastfeeding. They defend giving babies infant formula as 
being much healthier than traditional alternatives like rice water.

      Chinese people, due to changing lifestyles and a strong advertising 
push by some dairy companies, are increasingly choosing milk formula over 
breastfeeding, or stop early to switch to powdered milk.

      "As we all know, young mothers these days face huge pressure from 
society. Because of work reasons, they often don't have enough milk of their 
own, so in our country the proportion of children fed baby formula is quite 
big," Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu told a news conference on Wednesday.

      China's breastfeeding rate is around 70 percent, and the government 
admits promotion efforts lag. In the United States, by contrast, the 
percentage of mothers who breastfeed their babies has reached the highest 
level on record, at about 74 percent.

      Yet some companies make wild claims about their milk.

      "For quite a while now infant formula companies have been making 
claims that we believe are not supportable by science. Quite often in East 
Asia the most appealing claims are they put ingredients in the milk that 
make the children smarter," said Dale Rutstein, UNICEF's China 
communications chief.

      Wu Bixian, another Shijiazhuang mother, said she stopped breastfeeding 
when her son was four months old.

      "It was to boost his nutrition," Wu said when asked why she had 
switched to milk powder. "I felt I couldn't give him enough nutrition myself 
and formula would be better than breast milk."

      The Sanlu case is not the first time China has had problems with 
tainted milk powder, and it is the latest in a series of domestic and 
international scandals about toxic and unsafe food and products.

      In 2004, at least 13 babies died in the eastern province of Anhui 
after drinking fake milk powder that had no nutrition.

      Peter Dingle, an environmental toxicologist at Murdoch University in 
Perth, Australia, said he was mystified why milk powder was so popular in 
China.

      "For the life of me, why are they feeding them milk? It's far from the 
best thing for babies," he told Reuters. "China's breast cancer rate is 1 
percent and it is 13 percent in Australia. It's crazy to think that adopting 
a Western diet is to be of any benefit for kids."


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In the Beginning Lactation Services
Patricia Roppel-Keeling, IBCLC, RLC, CBED
Protecting, promoting, and encouraging healthy beginnings
for mother & babe through breastfeeding
[519] 372 - 1330 or [519] 377 - 9725

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