Working women need separate place for feeding their kids:Kh Salman

Lahore: Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab on Health, Khawaja Salman Rafique has said there is a need to allocate separate space to facilitate the working women for feeding their kids and setting up day care centers for children. He said that the government is ready to make necessary legislation for this purpose. He said that the death ratio of the infants is a big challenge for the government, health experts and the society and there is a need to create maximum awareness among the women for its reduction.

He expressed these views while addressing a seminar held regarding ‘World Breast Feeding Week’ at Alhamra Hall, here today. The seminar was arranged by Punjab Lady Health Workers Programme, aimed at highlighting the importance of breast feeding and growth of newly born babies. Special Secretary Health Punjab Babar Hayat Tarar, Unesef Child Survival & Development Specialist Dr. Sarita Naupane, Professor of Pediatric of King Edward Medical University Dr. Nosheen Aziz, Dr. Jaffar Saleem, Dr. Ameer-ud-Din, Dr. Ramiza Kaleem and other medical experts also addressed the seminar. The experts stated that mother’s feed is a complete diet and no other milk or formula can be alternative of mother’s feed. He said that breast feed develops resistance power in the children against diseases and the baby becomes more intelligent and healthy. The medical experts asked the women participating in the seminar to feed their children in the first six months and should not give any other feed and continue breast feeding for two years.

Khawaja Salman Rafique lamented that 69 out of 1000 children cannot celebrate their first birthday in Pakistan while 94 children die before the age of five year. He said that as per health experts the main cause of increasing death ratio in children is because of decreasing trend and period of breast feeding. He said that mothers should fulfill their responsibility of breast feeding to their children as per Ordinance 2002 of feeding the infants. He assured the health experts in the seminar that the government will take all possible steps and make further legislation keeping in view their recommendations.