World Health Organization, please make preventing breastfeeding deaths a priority!

World Health Organization, please make preventing breastfeeding deaths a priority!

At a recent meeting with the Fed Is Best Foundation, World Health Organization breastfeeding experts declared that informing mothers and providers of potentially deadly breastfeeding complications due to insufficient breastmilk is “not a priority.”
We implore the WHO to revise the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative guidelines to alert parents and providers to the signs of insufficient breastmilk and explain how to judiciously supplement with formula to prevent both brain injuries — from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), dehydration and severe jaundice — and deaths.
Nothing will bring back babies who have already died or reverse brain injuries that have already occured. But the WHO and BFHI should do everything in their power to prevent future breastfeeding injuries and deaths.