Harnessing local jurist networks across South Asia to protect breastfeeding

Initiating breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is a shared responsibility of society—including parents, family, service providers, and workplaces—to create conditions that protect, promote, and support breastfeeding. However, South Asian mothers working in the informal sectors are overlooked in workplace legislation. In the formal sectors, weak enforcement of maternity rights and family friendly policies results in lacking or limited safe spaces for breastfeeding or expressing breastmilk, with suboptimal paid maternity leave,8 reducing the chance that working mothers will breastfeed optimally.

Health providers and managers of public and private maternity health facilities in South Asia are not being held accountable to support early initiation of breastfeeding after birth. For example, although 82% of babies in South Asia are delivered by skilled birth attendants,1 only 39% of newborns initiate breastfeeding within an hour, and 35% are offered pre-lacteals in the first two days of birth.1 Self-reported insufficient milk continues to be one of the most common reasons for introducing commercial formula milk and stopping breastfeeding. Parents and health professionals often misinterpret typical, unsettled baby behaviours as signs of milk insufficiency or inadequacy. These fears are exploited by marketing agencies hired by the baby food industry to push them to use commercial milk formula.10

South Asia accounts for 37% of the total global burden of neonatal deaths: each year an estimated 895 000 newborns die in the region.10 Studies show that initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth can reduce the risk of neonatal death by as much as 22%,11 potentially saving an estimated 200 000 newborns in the region each year. Breastfeeding also aids healthy growth, a reduced infection risk, optimal brain development, cognitive stimulation, and bonding,9 which are essential for healthy early development.

Rampant exploitative marketing of commercial milk formula that undermines the power of breastfeeding must be curbed with robust legal measures that protect maternity and breastfeeding rights. This is every government’s obligation and a mother’s human right. South Asia has strong in-country jurist networks of lawyers and judges, which played a critical role in developing legal measures to propel governments to design “safety net” policies protecting and implementing rights to food and nutrition. Our discussions in the past two months with 10 human rights lawyers and judges in the region have revealed six ways to proactively engage to protect breastfeeding.

Six steps for action

First, build awareness and knowledge of judicial networks, including judges and lawyers who are practising, advocating, and teaching human rights and public health law, with national and international legal instruments that protect maternity entitlements, optimal breastfeeding, infant and young child feeding, and safe food environments.

Second, promote food and nutrition as a part of the judicial agenda, using forums including interparliamentary mechanisms, national judicial academies, and law commissions.

Third, engage in-country judges and lawyers to support governments in developing or revising legal measures including laws, regulations, executive orders, or other compulsory standards, if they are lacking or poorly aligned with global obligations. Additionally, evaluate the effectiveness of existing legal measures on outcomes, and review violations of measures for suo moto action (an act of authority taken without formal prompting), consumer education, and parliamentary action.

Fourth, nurture a network of pro-feminist jurist influencers, lawyers, and consumer rights groups, with interest in food and nutrition rights for south-south collaboration, cross learning, and voicing South Asia specific issues in regional and global discourses.

Fifth, integrate the legal aspects of food and nutrition in the pre-and in-service legal education curriculum, with incentives for training lawyers to study this subject in their higher education.

Finally, curb any unchecked, exploitative marketing of commercial milk formula, which will require health professional and jurist networks to connect and engage on issues. This requires that pre- and in-service health training includes judicial academics, that their committees include human rights and public health lawyers, and that appropriate platforms are harnessed for joint advocacy, training, and monitoring by health and judicial professional networks.

The power of in-country jurist networks to restrain exploitation remains underutilised in developing stronger legislative action to protect breastfeeding in South Asia. It’s time for networks of professionals to join forces in a movement to crack down on the menace created by the baby food industry.