PHA-Exch> Join the One Million Camapign on breastfeeding

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: arun arun.ibfan at gmail.com

Over the past six months we all have witnessed the most shocking
tainted milk scandal that killed six infants and sickened nearly
300,000 more. These babies, well below 3 years, were fed milk powder
contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used in fertilisers
and plastic production. Imagine if the babies were not fed powder milk
and in fact were fed on their mother’s milk. They could be saved from
this unnecessary catastrophe.

Add your name to the ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN - NO MORE MILK SCANDALS!
SUPPORT WOMEN TO BREASTFEED to stop the push towards feeding babies
with milk formula, as well as demand support to women to breastfeed.
Click here to sign the petition
http://www.onemillioncampaign.org/en/Details_Petitions.aspx


Growing scientific evidence points out how vital breastfeeding is to
infant survival with health. Women are being forced to stop
breastfeeding and give their babies milk formulas because they lack
support to breastfeed, whether at the time of birth in family or
institutions, or when they are at work, and more importantly due to
increasing commercial push to milk formula feeding. Potential
disasters are thus waiting to happen across the world.

The problem is HUGE. Around 200 mothers give birth to babies every
minute somewhere in the world. They need our support. Out of about 135
million children born annually, only 64 million begin breastfeeding
within an hour and 71 million do NOT. About 48 million women are
successful in carrying out exclusive breastfeeding for the first six
months, and 87 million are NOT.
Click to sign the petition
http://www.onemillioncampaign.org/en/Details_Petitions.aspx
to demand support for women to breastfeed.

Most people think of breastfeeding as something that happens between
the woman and her child: that this decision is in the personal domain.
However, several factors affect women's ability to breastfeed
successfully: traditions, myths, status in the family and society,
work load, confidence in her body and sexuality, economic needs,
labour laws, domestic and workplace violence and harassment,
availability of support services, advertising by commercial baby food
manufacturers, and so on. These factors do not allow millions of women
across the world to breastfeed their babies optimally.

How we respond to this crisis will shape the lives of our children –
our future.

Today, public concern alone can prevent potential milk scandals –
public action to respond to the needs of women to enable them to give
the best possible food to their  babies. We need to Act NOW !

Join the ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN - NO MORE MILK SCANDALS! SUPPORT WOMEN
TO BREASTFEED.
Click to sign the petition
http://www.onemillioncampaign.org/en/Details_Petitions.aspx

The petition demanding support to women will be presented to the world
leaders, at the World Health Assembly in May 2009. Your collective
voices will put pressure on the leaders to prevent unnecessary deaths
of children, to ensure that every woman in every part of the world is
enabled to breastfeed successfully.


Be a connector

Forward this email to all your friends, your networks, and your
family, and let us raise a voice our leaders cannot ignore.

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The Team

The ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN team assists the members of the World
Breastfeeding Movement family to identify issues that pose a challenge
to successful breastfeeding, and develop national, regional and
international campaigns around them. The team works through a
secretariat in New Delhi, India, and international coordinators for
different regions.

ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN Support Women to Breastfeed is a campaign of the
World Breastfeeding Movement with just one mission - to mobilize
public opinion through one million signatures, demanding support to
women to breastfeed.

ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN Support Women to Breastfeed brings together
people of all ages from all walks of life to generate the support
women need to breastfeed successfully. Through participating in the
Movement's campaigns, petitions to local, national and international
policy makers, discussions groups, evidence-based information sharing,
and actions at every level, you can focus national and global
attention on the several challenges to successful breastfeeding and
help to resolve them. read more


  ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN has been initiated by International Baby Food
Action Network (IBFAN), winner of the '1998 Right Livelihood Award'.
IBFAN has more than 200 public interest groups working around the
world to improve infant feeding practices and save lives of infants
and young children. IBFAN works for the universal and full
implementation of 'International Code of Marketing of Breast milk
Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly (WHA)
resolutions.
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