Breast feeding urged to reverse South Asia’s masses of malnourished children

Breastfeeding and better nutrition needs to be made a priority in South Asian countries, which have the worst rates of malnourished children in the world, the United Nations said. Across South Asia, nations need to promote breastfeeding and focus on better nutrition for under two-year-olds to reverse the trend, the organisation said yesterday. More than half of the world's 155 million chronically undernourished under five year-olds live in South Asia a new report by the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), has revealed. Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan came top of the list with 83 million children not being fed enough or poorly fed in those five countries, according to he report, Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition.

Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, together with nutrient rich foods, could reduce infant mortality rates by 12 to 15 percent in developing countries, the report said. "Undernutrition contributes to more than one third of all deaths in children under the age of five," Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF, said in the foreword of the report. "It does this by stealing children's strength and making illness more dangerous. An undernourished child struggles to withstand an attack of pneumonia, diarrhoea or other illness -- and illness often prevails." "The level of child and maternal undernutrition remains unacceptable throughout the world, with 90 percent of the developing world's chronically undernourished (stunted) children living in Asia and Africa," the report said. "Undernutrition undermines the survival, growth and development of children and women."

The lack of high-protein foods for babies and young children as well as tradition was mostly to blame, said Daniel Toole, regional director for UNICEF South Asia. "Low birth weight babies from young mothers who are forced into early marriages, women who do not exclusively breastfeed and a poor choice of food given to children from the age of six months are all factors," Toole told the United Nations news service, IRIN, from Kathmandu. Babies are often given dirty or contaminated water to supplement breast milk, say experts, or sometimes it is mixed in their food, which makes them more at risk from illnesses such as diarrhoea which prevents the body taking in vital nutrients.

More than 40 per cent of children from each of the five countries in South Asia show signs malnutrition such as stunted growth, which is linked to child mortality and chronic disease in adult life, the report said. Most South Asian governments had good nutrition policies in place, Mr Toole said, but these had not filtered down to the grassroots level. Globally 200 million children have their growth stunted by poor nutrition, according to figures from the United Nations.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children