Govt seeks to reverse decline in breast feeding

China's health authorities have made maternity and children's health a priority this year. One of the things they're doing is to promote breast feeding. China has a very low breast feeding rate. There's also a serious lack of public nursing rooms and baby stations. The government says this needs to change.

It's the most natural thing in the world, but for many babies in China it's luxury.

It didn't used to be like this. In 1998, 67 percent of mothers fed their babies exclusively with their own milk for the first six months. Last year only 28 percent did so. And it's even worse in the cities.

When mothers go back to work after 3 to 4 months of maternity leave, they have to use baby formula.

"I'll carry on breast feeding till my baby is 6 or 7 months old. I can only feed him once or twice a day since I came back to work. And it's very inconvenient to pump milk at work. There's no private room. I have to pump milk in a conference room or the bathroom," breast feeding mother Feng Yang said.

The lack of public baby stations is a problem for many breast-feeding mothers across the country. Last month, in Fujian, dozens of them fed their babies on the street to raise awareness. Health authorities say that's not good enough.

"So far, 64 cities have set up 534 breast feeding rooms, 115 of them in work places, and 419 in public areas. Compared with the number of new babies every year, that's far from being adequate,"said Wang Guoqiang, deputy director of National Health & Family Planning Commission.

We recommend that all work places set up breast feeding rooms. The World Health Organization says 10 square meters is enough space,"said Zhang Shikun, National Health & Family Planning Commission.

The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months. And breast feeding should continue to supplement solid food up to the age of two or beyond. The government's goal is to raise the country's breast feeding rate to 50 percent by 2020.