1. Implement the 1995 Beijing Conference decisions in the Platform for Action to support breastfeeding; measure and value in time use surveys and national accounts the work of breastfeeding both on its own and as a simultaneous activity with other work women do, with or without pay. (See Appendix I.)

2. Produce worldwide estimates of the economic value of breastfeeding that include not only its value as caring work but also the value of breast milk. This will encourage each country to prepare national figures or be seen not to.

Since the work is the same and has the same output and effect whoever does it, all the time spent breastfeeding and all the breast milk produced must be valued at the same rate regardless of nationality, race, class, religion, age, other occupation, etc., of the mother. Valuing breastfeeding can blaze a trail for global pay equity, since with this work it is so clear that our time has the same value everywhere.

3. Each national census to include questions on how much breastfeeding work women are doing, as well as how much other work they have to do which can interfere with breastfeeding.

And since society’s life depends on it, we must make clear what we consider important and monitor whether and where we are meeting our own humane targets:

4. Regular national collection and public reporting of breastfeeding rates that highlight regional disparities.

5. Official balance sheets of the costs of less breastfeeding in terms of increased illness and deaths, and higher healthcare and other costs.

6. National food balance sheets to include human milk.

7. Women to be asked how much time breastfeeding takes compared to formula feeding, the barriers they see to breastfeeding, and what impact paid maternity leave and workplace daycare/crèches have and can have on women’s ability and willingness to breastfeed fully.

8. Promotion of at least six months exclusive breastfeeding, the generally agreed necessary minimum, for all mothers South and North irrespective of their HIV status.*

9. During famine and other disasters, not formula but meeting the food needs of nursing mothers must be the priority of emergency relief, regardless of the age of the nursing child. This is the only way to ensure that both the child and the mother survive.

10. An end to all programs, pilots and trials on mother-to-child transmission of HIV which push drugs and formula. Toxic drugs must not be given to pregnant and breastfeeding women and their infants.

11. Mothers’ and children’s right to breastfeed in public and to appropriate facilities for feeding children in private must be established.

What society pays for and how much, tells us what it values. If we want breastfeeding to happen, then we should invest social resources in supporting this caring.

12. Government breastfeeding allowances which would socially recognize and enable it. Since every breastfeeding mother is a working mother, every mother, single or married, immigrant, asylum seeker, student, of any age, must be eligible for this allowance. Resources now spent on formula and on HIV testing can go some way to paying for this irreplaceable service, as can savings in healthcare, etc.

Formula is not economic for anyone but the companies, their paid advocates and the healthcare industry.

13. Universal entitlement to: paid maternity leave for at least the six months minimum; paid nursing breaks and/or shorter workdays without cuts in pay as well as workplace breastfeeding facilities; protection from dismissal and other discrimination due to pregnancy or breastfeeding. Women, regardless of marital status, working in the formal or informal sectors, including contract, home-care, home-based, casual, agricultural, domestic, migrant and self-employed workers, must be eligible.

14. Funds for local breast milk banks, including payment and reimbursement of expenses for donor mothers, so that donor milk becomes the viable alternative to formula in the few cases when it isn’t possible for the mother to breastfeed.

15. Properly resourced services which need no help from any commercial source, including breastfeeding counsellors and peer support groups based in the community and hospital maternity units. Breastfeeding mothers who lack community support should be offered daily visits by breastfeeding counsellors for at least 10 days after giving birth, and should have access to 24-hour help lines.

16. International funding and implementation of the UNICEF Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, independently monitored.

17. Breastfeeding promotion campaigns based on information about the economic, social and health value of breast milk, replacing advertisements for formula which must be banned (as tobacco advertising should be). Images showing babies being breastfed instead of bottle-fed in children’s books and stories, TV soaps and ads, etc. (A feeding bottle is often used to indicate baby care facilities – another symbol can replace it.) Breastfeeding should be part of schools curricula on nutrition, science, sociology and related subjects.

18. Breastfeeding, its importance and practical training in initiating and maintaining it, to be part of the education of health workers: midwives, nurses, health visitors and doctors.

19. Legislation and funding to monitor and enforce universal compliance with the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes, independently of the UN. At present there is no regulatory body. The Code must apply to governments and intergovernmental agencies, such as UNICEF, which have become major promoters of formula.

20. No funding of health professionals’ training by the dairy, formula or pharmaceutical industries or any commercial or other vested interest which benefit from undermining breastfeeding.

21. Full disclosure of the funding of any research on breastfeeding in all scientific publications and media reports. Indirect sponsorships, ownerships, participation in or other support for any research institution must be reported.

22. Disclosure to the general public of sponsorship of any health publication, conference, meeting or professional association, and of industry membership of such association.

From "The Milk of Human Kindness – Defending breastfeeding from the global market & the AIDS industry" by Solveig Francis, Selma James, Phoebe Jones Schellenberg and Nina Lopez-Jones

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