Clipping of news on Brazilian Culture, Law and Citizenship
02/08/2012
This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.
By Daniela Lessa
Fiocruz, through its initiatives in favor of breastfeeding, participates in the strengthening of the practice in Brazil and abroad. In the period 1-7 August, in which we celebrate the World Breastfeeding Week, sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), the coordinator of the Brazilian Network of Human Milk Banks (rBLH) and the Iberoamerican Program of Banks Human Milk (IberBLH), Joao Aprígio Guerra de Almeida, said that work, which adopted a new paradigm of quality since 1985 and has been increasingly valued and considered an example internationally.
The size of the project can be evaluated from some of its results, for example, the number of children and women attended. In 2011, rBLH benefited about 173 000 newborns admitted to the Intensive Care Units (ICU) and served 1.9 million women with some kind of difficulty related to breastfeeding. In Brazil, there are 208 milk banks and 15 are under implementation. The project also has an international reach and has spread to 23 other countries.
To Aprígio, all this growth was only possible due to support from the Ministry of Health, which took the breastfeeding as a strategy for national food security and invested in research and technological development in this area. "It was considered to be strategic and have received rBLH investments that can develop to the point of being considered an international paradigm," he says. He explains that although milk banks existed before 1985, the network involves two specific macro processes. One is linked to the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding and the other relates to quality control in collecting, processing and distribution of human milk.
International recognition
Recently, the Brazilian network of human milk was reported by British newspaper The Guardian as an example of successful cooperation in South-South axis, confirming the recognition that international agencies had previously granted to the initiative. Aprígio also notes the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its Office of International Health Affairs (Aisa) and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), as a decisive factor for increasing the international visibility of the Brazilian project.
He recalls that one of the facts decisive for the internationalization of networks of human milk was Brazil's participation in the Summit Forum of Heads of State and Government of Ibero-America, 2007. "During the event, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has requested cooperation from Brazil to the establishment of breastfeeding programs in the Americas region, which resulted in the creation of the Ibero-American Human Milk Banks," account.
Currently this program has already exceeded the initial geographical sphere and reaches countries in Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, plus the Caribbean and all of South America in 2009, the initiative won another important recognition and is considered one of the most successful programs of the UN in South-South axis. In 2010, the network was the subject of a case study from PAHO.
The rBLH is a project coordinated by the National Women's Health, Child and Adolescent Fernandes Figueira (IFF / Fiocruz) and the Institute of Communication and Information Science and Technology in Health (ICICT / Fiocruz). Track your progress on the timeline.
See the schedule of the activities of World Breastfeeding Week in Brazil and Latin America.
Source: FioCruz
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This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.