Jack writes:


>As far as I can see, the BFHI in Canada is dead in the water. Mainly, in my
>opinion, because the government is controlling the show (to keep things
from
>getting done), and UNICEF Canada is abetting their efforts.


I think the extremely hard-working members of the Breastfeeding Committee
for Canada (BCC), which is the interdisciplinary group working on getting
BFI implemented in Canada, would be very disappointed to hear you say this.
The BFI Canadian Launch in Vancouver in November was a wonderful conference
and many
people went home with an awareness or heightened awareness of BFI and how to
get
going on it.

I attended meetings in Hamilton last year geared towards forging a
partnership between the BCC and Health Canada's Canada Prenatal Nutrition
Program so that project communities can begin working towards bringing BFI
to those communities (I'm doing a session on BFI at the Alberta/Northwest
Territories CPNP conference in a couple of weeks, in fact). There have been
meetings between the BCC and provincial health people. True, there are no
BFI institutions yet in Canada, which is very disappointing. But things are
starting to move. It's taking a long time and has no doubt been full of
frustrations but I think there's going to be increasing momentum over the
next year or two. Getting the Canadian government to do more on the WHO Code
may be another matter, but small steps ...

Leslie Ayre-Jaschke, BEd, IBCLC
Peace River, Alberta, Canada
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