UNICEF Calls on Iraq's Mothers to Breast-Feed

BAGHDAD, Aug. 13, 2007 — -- With severe heat and water shortages still plaguing much of Iraq, UNICEF is warning women here with young children to take precautions.

The global aid agency is calling on mothers to exclusively breast-feed babies — rather than use infant formula — to help prevent dangerous waterborne diseases and improve nutrition.

The combination of heat, unsafe water and unhygienic conditions in many of Iraq's cities and temporary camps could spark a diarrhea outbreak in very young children, causing dehydration, malnutrition and possibly even death, the agency warns.

UNICEF estimates that more than 1 million babies were born in Iraq over the last 12 months, at least 40,000 of them to displaced families living in squalid refugee camps.

Iraq's countrywide policy of distributing free infant formula for all infants is still in place, but Roger Wright, UNICEF's representative for Iraq, called that policy a "recipe for disaster in current conditions" because the formula is likely to be prepared using unsafe water.

"Dehydration resulting from diarrhea caused by contaminated water and poor sanitation is already Iraq's biggest killer of young children," said Wright.

Iraq's Ministry of Health estimates that just 25 percent of Iraqi infants younger than 6 months are exclusively breast-fed. Dr. Kadhim Nidhal, manager of the breast-feeding program at the Ministry of Health in Baghdad, called the figure "worryingly low" and said that the free distribution of infant formula "is a negative factor in contributing to these low rates," because it discourages breast-feeding.

"Breast milk is the best possible nourishment for these children," said Nidhal. "Mothers must not risk any other food or additional water for their young babies."

Newborns of displaced mothers living in temporary shelters or abandoned buildings are at particularly high risk from diarrhea, aid officials here said. In the Najaf province, where up to 50,000 displaced people are living in temporary camps, diarrhea rates are twice the seasonal average, according to the Ministry of Health. Unsafe water and poor sanitation are to blame for almost 90 percent of Iraq's diarrhea cases, the ministry estimates.