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Protect breastfeeding – A shared responsibility

05 August 2021 | Story Dr Chantell Witten | Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Dr Chantell Witten, Division of Health Professions Education, University of the Free State.

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from 1-7 August. In South Africa, it coincides with Women’s Month and gives us the opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and how far we still have to go to achieve gender equity in different spheres of life. Even more reason for us in the academic sphere to stop and think about the areas of support that may still need attention and effort to correct.

In the context of protecting breastfeeding this would speak to the Code of Good Conduct in the Labour Act which affords pregnant and breastfeeding women protection and support. In extreme cases it means protection from exposure to hazardous substances, but in the general setting of the work environment this relates to workplace support for a private and safe place to express breastmilk. One institution made headlines when a staff member was secretly videoed while she was expressing breastmilk. What is also needed is to put in place a policy that guides on how university property such as a fridge may or may not be used to store expressed breastmilk, or how to deal with a manager who insists on holding meetings in a woman’s scheduled milk-expressing time slots. The law may indicate that you are entitled to two 30-minute time slots to express but it is quite another issue to get your colleagues to accommodate or respect your biological needs.

Protecting breastfeeding

Besides the protection of employees, the government in its commitment to improve child health and nutrition has committed to protect breastfeeding from the undue influence of the infant-formula industry by implementing the recommendations of the International Code for the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. South Africa approved the Regulations Relating to Foodstuff for Infants and Young Children (R991) to control the marketing and promotion of infant formula by limiting how the product may be marketed and how the industry may engage with the public and child health and development professionals, in particular.

While many are aware of the prohibition to advertise or to promote and distribute free or incentivised sales of infant formula, many may not be aware of the limitations placed on academics and researchers. The academic and research fraternity has had a long and conflicted relationship and history with the infant-formula industry. Many departments and individual researchers have received funding, conference sponsorship and gifts from the infant-formula industry. In the early 2000s at the height of the HIV epidemic, the Department of Health recommended that women living with HIV should not breastfeed and instead provided six months of free formula milk, inadvertently implying that health professionals approved of infant formula. While the national Department of Health has since stopped the distribution of free infant formula through the programme for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) from 2011, many health professionals trained in the early years continue giving mixed messages to mothers and display limited skills to promote and support breastfeeding.

So how do we protect breastfeeding in the academic setting?

As more women enter academia, managers and the institutional leadership need to be cognisant and purposeful in developing a breastfeeding culture by granting women the protections afforded them by the Labour Law. Furthermore, in all spheres of academia and research, and as an institution, we need to guard against conflict of interest and conflicted relationships with the infant-formula industry. We need to do due diligence by raising the awareness of R991. All child health and development professionals should be acquainted with R991 through their curricula, and we should individually and collectively be accountable in our conduct to protect, promote and support breastfeeding as a human right, an investment in health and development, and for a sustainable future. There can be no greater dividend than to invest in optimal nutrition for infants and our children. They are the future.

News Archive

Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture to focus on Leadership challenges

2006-03-27

Lecture to focus on Leadership challenges

n Thursday 25 May 2006 – Africa Day – the University of the Free State (UFS) will host the inaugural King Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture in honour of this great African leader and nation-builder.

Prof Njabulo Ndebele, internationally renowned writer and academic, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT), will deliver the inaugural lecture at the Main Campus in Bloemfontein on the topic: Reflections on the Leadership Challenges in South Africa.

“I see the lecture as part of a larger debate on leadership models, particularly the concept of African leadership, as well as the ongoing discourse about nation-building and reconciliation,” says Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

According to Prof Fourie, the Moshoeshoe project was launched at the UFS in 2004 to coincide with South Africa’s first decade of democracy and was part of the University’s centenary celebrations, having been founded in 1904.

“Through this project the UFS seeks to honour a great African leader and demonstrate our commitment to transformation so as to create a truly inclusive and non-racial university,” said Prof Fourie.

“As the founder of the Basotho nation, King Moshoeshoe is widely credited for his exceptional style of leadership, displaying the characteristics of diplomacy, reconciliation and peaceful co-existence in his efforts to unite diverse groups into one nation,” said Prof Fourie.

As part of its ongoing Moshoeshoe project, the UFS commissioned a television documentary programme on the life and legacy of King Moshoeshoe. This was completed in 2004 and broadcast on SABC 2 later that year.

For further information, Me Tumi Tabane can be contacted at (051) 401-2828 or tabaneme.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za.

Abridged curriculum vitae of Njabulo S Ndebele

Professor Njabulo S Ndebele is currently Vice-Chancellor and Principal of UCT.

Njabulo Ndebele began his term of office at UCT in July 2000, following tenure as a scholar in residence at the Ford Foundation’s headquarters in New York. He joined the Foundation in September 1998, immediately after a five-year term of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the North in Sovenga, at the then Northern Province. Previously he served as Vice-Rector of the University of the Western Cape. Earlier positions include Chair of the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand; and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Dean, and Head of the English Department at the National University of Lesotho.

An established author, Njabulo Ndebele recently published a novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela to critical acclaim. An earlier publication Fools and Other Stories won the Noma Award, Africa’s highest literary award for the best book published in Africa in 1984. His highly influential essays on South African literature and culture were published in a collection Rediscovery of the Ordinary.

Njabulo Ndebele served as President of the Congress of South African Writers for many years. As a public figure he is known for his incisive insights in commentaries on a range of public issues in South Africa. He holds honorary doctorates from Universities in the Netherlands, Japan, South Africa and the United States of America. He is also a Fellow of UCT.

Njabulo Ndebele is also a key figure in South African higher education. He has served as Chair of the South African Universities Vice-Chancellor’s Association from 2002-2005, and served on the Executive Board of the Association of African Universities since 2001. He has done public service in South Africa in the areas of broadcasting policy, school curriculum in history, and more recently as chair of a government commission on the development and use of African languages as media of instruction in South African higher education. He recently became President of the Association of the AAU and Chair of the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA).

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
26 March 2006

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