KUWAIT CITY, Nov 6: The Public Authority for Food and Nutrition celebrated the launch of World Breastfeeding Week, under the slogan “Empowering Breastfeeding, Making a Difference for Working Parents,” which continues until the ninth of this month.

PAFN said the aim is to bring about a high level of awareness of the importance of breastfeeding to the point that it reached 93 percent among mothers.

Coordinator of the Program to Promote Nutrition for Mothers, Infants, and Young Children and the Project to Combat Child Obesity at the Authority, Dr. Mona Al-Sumaie, told A-Rai daily the celebration focuses on breastfeeding and work. She explained that "the program aims to demonstrate the impact of paid maternity leave, support the workplace and provide a breastfeeding-friendly environment in terms of the local laws, legislation and administrative decisions regarding the implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospitals Initiative."

Al-Sumaie added, “The program also aims to demonstrate the impact of ministerial decisions regarding the protection of breastfeeding and the implementation of the Kuwaiti Code to regulate the marketing of breast milk substitutes.”

She stated that “the program seeks to encourage, support and protect breastfeeding, by enabling mothers and their families to begin breastfeeding immediately after birth, and to continue exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of the newborn’s life.”

She indicated that “the results of the nutritional surveillance program in the State of Kuwait for the year 2021 show an increase in Kuwaiti mothers’ demand for breastfeeding, as the breastfeeding rate reached 93 percent, and the rate of early initiation of breastfeeding in the first hour after birth was 64 percent.”

She stated that “the percentage of breastfeeding practiced exclusively with mother’s milk in the first six months of the newborn’s life reached 13 percent among Kuwaiti women, an increase of up to 3 percent compared to what it was in 2020.”