Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at IIT

The American Public Health Association,

Reiterating and reinforcing its position that human milk from a healthy mother is the food of choice for infants;¹

and Realizing that there are circumstances where breastfeeding is either not initiated, must be terminated early in infancy, or must be supplemented;

and Recognizing the need for infant feeding products that meet established nutritional requirements of infants;

and Recognizing the rights of parents to make informed choices about infant feeding regimens;

and Understanding that advertising can be either informative and beneficial or misleading and deleterious; therefore

Urges health professionals to stress the superiority of breastfeeding as the feeding method of choice for infants;

Joins with the WHO/UNICEF position 2-4 reasserting that breast feeding is the infant feeding method of choice and that advertising of infant feeding products should: articulate the superiority of breastmilk to any other source of infant nutrition, not be advertised directly to the public via mass media, 4 and be factual and ethical;

Commends the responsible actions of those infant feeding product manufacturers who already conform to the WHO/UNICEF position in the advertising of their products;

Urges health professionals and manufacturers of infant feeding products to carefully instruct parents in the safe preparation and use of such products when they are indicated and do not deter breast feeding;

Commits itself to and encourages other health professional organizations to continue to strive for improved factual and ethical advertising of infant feeding products in professional publications; and

Urges WHO/UNICEF to develop literature in language which is understandable by the general public in this and other countries on the appropriate and safe use of infant feeding products.

References

1. APHA Policy Statement #7403: Breastfeeding, adopted by the Governing Council, 1974.

2. WHO/UNICEF: Statement of Infant and Young Child Feeding.

Geneva: WHO/UNICEF, October 11, 1979. 3. WHO/UNICEF Meeting, Lancet 8147:841-43,1979. 4. The Campaign against Malnutrition, Lancet 8147:833, 1979.