Date: 7th August , 2020 | Time: 12:00-1:30 pm 

Enhancing Access to Skilled Lactation Counselling Support & Protecting Mothers from Commercial Baby Food Marketing: The Digital Way
Launch of the “Stanpan Suraksha” A Mobile Application (On Zoom)

 

Background
WHO recognises breastfeeding as a public health intervention for optimal nutrition in the first two years of life, which is fundamental for healthy growth and development and establishment of healthy long-term dietary patterns and better health outcomes in later life.

Breastfeeding counselling helps in building a mother’s confidence-that improves milk flow, helping in effective milk transfer by improved techniques, and preventing or resolving breastfeeding problems. Scientific evidence shows positive impact of breastfeeding counselling both at the health facility level, and at the community level. It helps increase rates of initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth as well as duration of exclusive breastfeeding.

Baby food companies do anything possible to undermine breastfeeding using several methods to infiltrate the health system. It is important to protect mothers from this influence through monitoring the companies against a standard i.e. Infant Milk Substitutes Feeding Bottles, and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 1992, and Amendment Act 2003.

With the vision to support lactating mothers through their breastfeeding journey with skilled counselling support and protecting them from commercial influence; BPNI is launching a mobile app “Stanpan Suraksha” with two key features:

i) To provide access to skilled counsellors (authorised by BPNI)near them and able to speak local languages. Lactating mothers can connect and meet in person for practical support or video calls.

ii) To report how baby food companies promote their products (infant milk substitutes, infant foods or feeding bottles)within the scope of the IMS Act.

Other features: Success stories by the mothers, becoming a counsellor and engagement features for advocating breastfeeding issues.

 

SPEAKERS

Dr. Sila Deb
Additional Commissioner (Child Health and In-Charge – Nutrition)
MoHFW, Government of India

Dr. Sila Deb, is working as Additional Commissioner (Child Health and In-Charge – Nutrition), in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India since 2010 and looking after the National Child Health and Nutrition Programme as national programme manager for the thematic areas such as, Anaemia Mukt Bharat strategy, Vitamin A Supplementation Programme, Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices, Deworming of Children and Adolescents, Childhood Diarrhoea and Pneumonia, Facility based Management of Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition etc. She is intensely involved in programme planning and development of national guidelines in related thematic areas, supporting the States in implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation of the programmes.

 

Ms. Kiran Chopra,
Director, Punjab Kesari Publishers

Mrs. Kiran Chopra, Director, Punjab Kesari Publishers and Founder Chairperson of Varishth Nagrik Kesari Club which works for the needy, middle & upper class senior citizens) is an entrepreneur, educationist and a humanist to the core. Mrs. Kiran Chopra is an educationist, par excellence, and is the Founder Head of J.R. Media Institute, Delhi .She comes from a distinguished family of great martyrs late Lala Jagat Narain ji and late Sh. Romesh Chander ji and wife of late Sh. Ashwini Kumar, Senior Journalist, Director, Punjab Kesari Newspaper & MP, Karnal. As a humanist she believes in helping people in need.

 

Dr. Arun Gupta (MD Ped)
Central Coordinator BPNI

Dr. Arun Gupta, a pediatrician in public service, founded the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) in 1991. Over nearly 30 years, BPNI has played key role in strengthening national policies to promote, protect and support breastfeeding, which has led to almost negligible growth of breast-milk substitutes. Dr. Gupta has worked on policy analysis related to breastfeeding and complementary feeding. Part of this work involved conceptualizing and creating IBFAN’s World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi), a break-through tool to bring together key government, academic, and NGOs to identify gaps and generate action, and created a unique web repository of policy and programmes. He has also written extensively on child nutrition and conflicts of interest and, in 2015, convened “Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest” (NAPi) http://napiindia.in/wedo.html. His strong belief in the legal frameworks to protect public health has made significant impact in countries. Dr. Gupta coordinates BPNI and the South Asia part of International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), which is a 1998 Right Livelihood Award recipient. In 2001, the Dr. Gupta was named a Fellow of Indian Academy of Pediatrics.. Email Id-arun.ibfan@gmail.com

 

Dr. JP Dadhich MD (Paediatrics); FNNF
Director Technical , BPNI

Dr. JP Dadhich is Director Technical, BPNI, India. He is a Pediatrician and Fellow of National Neonatology Forum of India. He has been an integral part of BPNI since more than one and a half decade. He is the co-chair of the global council of International Baby Food Action Network. He is former secretary of the National Neonatology Forum of India. He has several publications in peer reviewed journals and has contributed to a number of  guidelines and chapters in the books on breastfeeding, infant and young child feeding, child nutrition, neonatology and related subjects.  Email Id-jpdadhich@bpni.org

 

Ms. Nupur Bidla
Director Advocacy, BPNI

Ms. Nupur Bidla is working as the  Director , Advocacy with BPNI. She holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work with specialization in Health and Development from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is a PhD Scholar at the Department for Social Work, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi and her topic of research is experiences and perception of urban women of breastfeeding in public spaces. She has more than 9 years of experience in the domain of breastfeeding and IYCF advocacy,training and research. Email Id- nupurbidla@gmail.com

 

Download PowerPoint Presentation

Successful use of digital technology to protect, promote and support breastfeeding-Dr. JP Dadhich, Technical Director, BPNI

Introduction and features of the mobile application "Stanpan Suraksha"-Ms. Nupur Bidla, Director Advocacy, BPNI

 

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