Breast-feeding rate in China falls far below world average

China's health authority reported a breast-feeding rate of 27.8 percent, far below the world average of 38 percent, at an awareness-raising event on Friday to mark World Breastfeeding Week, from Aug 1 to 7 each year.

According to the World Health Organization, breast-feeding is the best way to provide newborns with the nutrients they need. Breast-feeding is recommended until infants reach 6 months, and it should be continued with supplementary foods for up to two years.

In China, the breast-feeding rate for babies up to 6 months is expected to reach at least 50 percent, according to the Outline Program for Development of Chinese Children (2011-2020), issued by the State Council.

"Breast-feeding is crucial to newborns' health, but we are still far from that goal," said Qin Geng, deputy director of the Maternal and Child Health Department of the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

In addition to nutrition, breast-feeding helps infants develop immunity to infectious diseases up through adulthood, he added.

But "China's breast-feeding rate has been decreasing in recent years," said Zhang Shuyi, an assistant researcher at the Capital Institute of Pediatrics, a Beijing children's hospital.

"It used to be a tradition, but that has been changed by new lifestyles and modern industries," she said.

Breast-feeding is more common in the countryside but the rate "is getting worse as more people migrate to cities for employment," she said.

The breast-feeding rate in rural areas now stands at 30.3 percent and at 15.8 percent in urban settings, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

As more people move to cities, they are more exposed to milk powder advertising.

"Such advertisements have a negative impact on mothers' decision to breast-feed," she warned, urging greater control over milk powder advertising.

Support in the workplace, family and from society as a whole is urged to help promote breast-feeding.

In response, the commission will take the lead in setting up a breast-feeding room in its office building, Qin said.

In Beijing, 1,000 similar facilities are expected to be introduced in the next three years in a project by the local federation of trade unions.

Such equipment as refrigerators, disinfected cabinets, tables and chairs will be installed to facilitate breast-feeding.

A public health hotline - 12320 - will answer questions about breast-feeding, Qin said.

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated in more than 170 countries to encourage breast-feeding and improve the health of babies around the world.

It aims to commemorate the Innocenti Declaration made by WHO and UNICEF policymakers in August 1990 to promote breast-feeding.