Unicef to set up three creches in Patna

PATNA: With a view to promote breast-feeding, the Unicef will establish three creches in the state capital to enable working mothers to breastfeed their infants at their work places.
This announcement was made on Thursday by health commissioner Ashok Kumar Chaudhary while inaugurating the ‘World Breast-feeding Promotion Week’ function organised under the joint aegis of the social welfare department of Bihar government and Unicef, at the State Health and Family Welfare Institute (SHFWI), Patna.Chaudhary said that one creche will be located at the Old Secretariat, the second at New Secretariat and the third at SFHWI.
Emphasising that breast-feeding was absolutely necessary for the proper growth of a child, Chaudhary said that the state government would initiate measures to amend the labour laws and services rules of employees to allow working mothers to breastfeed their children at their places of work. The health commissioner asked the director, social welfare, Gautam Goswami, to prepare a cabinet note to this effect and send it to the government for its consideration.
Noted paediatrician and state president of Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) Dr Arun Kumar Thakur and Goswami said that the breastfed children had better decision-making and socialisation capacity. Such children were emotionally more stable, Thakur said. He said that breast-feeding should start within 30 minutes of the birth of a child.
A child should be kept exclusively on breatfeeding for six months and thereafter he should be given supplementary food, Thakur said.
Referring to a survey conducted in Norway, both Thakur and Goswami said that breastfed children had a much better intelligence quotient (IQ) in comparison to non-breastfed children.