World Breastfeeding Trends Iniciative. Situation Analysis in Lithuania

NPO „Pradžių pradžia“ has expressed it‘s willingness and received powers to join „World Breatsfeeding Trends initiative“ (WBTi)and perform analysis of breastfeeding situation in Lithuania.

At WBTi training in Portugal, 18-21 October, 2016. European IBFAN group members from Portugal, France, Albania, Moldova, Serbia and Lithuania – representative from NPO „Pradžių pradžia“ Daiva Šniukaitė (first from left in the second row ) and Ieva Gudanavičienė (first from left in a first row) together with dr.Arun Gupta and dr. Shoba Suri.

Expected WBTi Outcomes

• To provide governments and other agencies and their international development assistance partners with critical information needed to bridge gaps in infant and young child feeding policy and practice.

• To provide evidence for IBFAN groups to advocate for greater effort and investment to promote early and exclusive breastfeeding in the respective countries and regions.

• To contribute to attaining MDG-4 and 5 and reducing under-five child mortality and improving women’s health.

About the initiative

Introduction

IBFAN  has iniciated an innovative initiative, the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi), developed by IBFAN Asia , to assess the status and benchmark the progress of the implementation of the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding.
The tool is based on two global initiatives, the first is WABA’s Global Participatory Action Research (GLOPAR) and the second the WHO’s “Infant and Young Child Feeding: A tool for assessing national practices, policies and programmes“. The WBTi is designed to assist countries in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their policies and programmes to protect, promote and support optimal infant and young child feeding practices.

WBTi is an initiative!

The WBTi is Participatory: It seeks to involve all stakeholders, while avoiding conflicts of interest, working on infant and young child feeding, including governments and NGOs. It is highly participatory since the participants collect information, analyze the findings, locate gaps, and take action based on the results. In the process, the participants develop networking skills, investigative techniques and monitoring and reporting methods.

The WBTi is Action-oriented: It aims to stimulate action, not simply to collect information. Having more information is not helpful unless there are strategies in place for translating the information into tools for change and for taking action to improve the situation.

The WBTi is Simple Research: It aims to stimulate research, investigation, ask questions, and find out why optimal breastfeeding does or does not occur. The investigation is done by local people, not by external researchers. It leads to comprehensive analysis to stimulate action for change.

The 15 indicators of WBTi

The WBTi focus is based on a wide range of indicators, which provide an impartial global view of key factors.

The WBTi has identified 15 indicators. Each indicator has its specific significance. Part I has 10 indicators dealing with policies and programms and Part-II has 5 indicators, based on the WHO tool, dealing with infant feeding practices.

Part -I

1. National Policy, Programm and Coordination

2. Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding)

3. Implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes

4. Maternity Protection

5. Health and Nutrition Care System (in support of breastfeeding & IYCF)

6. Mother Support and Community Outreach-Community-based support for the pregnant and breastfeeding mother

7. Information Support

8. Infant Feeding and HIV

9. Infant Feeding During Emergencies

10. Mechanism of Monitoring and Evaluation Systems
Part -II

11. Early initiation of breastfeeding

12. Exclusive breastfeeding.

13. Median duration of breastfeeding.

14. Bottle feeding.

15. Complementary feeding.

Once assessment of gaps is carried out and data verified, the data on 15 indicators is fed into the web-based toolkit. Scoring and colour-rating is done for each individual indicator. The toolkit objectively quantifies the data to provide a colour- rating i.e. Red, Yellow, Blue and Green. The toolkit has the capacity to generate visual maps or graphic charts to assist in advocacy at all levels e.g. national, regional and international.

The International Baby Food Action Network, IBFAN, consists of more than 273 public interest groups in 168 countries working around the world to reduce infant and young child morbidity and mortality. IBFAN aims to improve the health and well-being of babies and young children, their mothers and their families through the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding and optimal infant feeding practices. IBFAN works for universal and full implementation of the International Code and Resolutions.

IBFAN is arranged into eight regional offices. IBFAN Asia is coordinated from the regional office in Dehli, India.

IBFAN Asia has developed the WBTi as a system for Tracking, Assessing and Monitoring (TAM) the implementation of the Global Strategy, using a web-based toolkit. It aims at strengthening and stimulating breastfeeding action worldwide. The WBTi clearly identifies gaps to help governments, donors, bi-laterals and UN agencies to commit resources where they are most needed. It helps NGOs to define areas for advocacy and action and thus focus their efforts. It helps to develop and to effectively target strategies that can improve infant and young child feeding.
The WBTi is being implemented as an integral part of the project “Global Breastfeeding Initiative for Child Survival” (GBiCS), in partnership with Norad. Norway’s flagship program, the ‘Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals‘ launched in September 2007, provides the opportunity for this action on breastfeeding. The WBTi will serve as a lens to find out gaps in policy and programs at national level, and breastfeeding partners IBFAN and WABA will act to initiate action to bridge these gaps.

Dr.Arun Gupta, Daiva Šniukaitė, Ieva Gudanavičienė and  dr. Shoba Suri at WBTi training in Portugal, October 2016 .