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A medical worker teaches a mother how to breastfeed her newborn baby at the National Hospital for Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Ha Noi. — VNA/VNS Photo Duong Ngoc |
Activities will fall within the framework of a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on improving infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices signed on Thursday by the VWU and the US's Academy for Educational Development (AED).
Under the MoU, the VWU will focus its activities on advocating and engaging in policy issues related to early child nutrition such as Decree 21 which covers the sale and use of nutritious products for infants and maternity leave.
The VWU will advocate for exclusive breast feeding; organise meetings and conferences, and encourage leaders to participate; identify opportunities to engage policy makers and the media to voice support for the issue; and meet with key officials to increase awareness of opportunities to improve infant and young child nutrition.
The malnutrition rate among children under five in Viet Nam is still high, reaching 25.8 per cent. One cause is a lack of understanding and information among mothers about how to take proper care of their infants and themselves, said Vice Chairwoman of the VWU Tran Thanh Binh.
Ministry of Health statistics show that most women breast feed but only 55 per cent begin breast feeding right at birth and only 20 per cent of infants under six months of age are breast fed exclusively.
With initial funding of US$76 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Alive and Thrive Initiative works to improve infant and young child nutrition by increasing the rate of exclusive breast feeding and improving complementary feeding practices. The initiative aims to reach more than 16 million children under two years old in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Viet Nam from 2009-13. — VNS
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