Donald Trump insists the U.S. supports the practice of breastfeeding. On Monday, the president criticized a New York Times report that his administration opposes a major breastfeeding resolution that pushed to “protect, promote and support breastfeeding” around the world and to limit misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. Get push notifications with news, features and more. “The failing NY Times Fake News story today about breastfeeding must be called out. The U.S. strongly supports breastfeeding but we don’t believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty,” Trump tweeted. The Times alleged that the U.S. threatened countries over the World Health Organization (WHO)’s measure in support of breastfeeding and was “embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers.” President Trump Departs White House For G7 Summit In Canada Donald Trump | Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty The U.S. reportedly demanded that “language asking governments to ‘protect, promote, and support breastfeeding’ be removed” and request lawmakers to “restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.” When Ecuador, which was expected introduce the measure last spring, refused, the U.S. allegedly threatened to economically cripple the country with tariffs and withdrawal of U.S. military aid. Trump’s reported opposition to the breastfeeding measure was denounced by many around the world. “We were astonished, appalled, and also saddened,” Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, told the Times. “What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the best way to protect infant and young child health.” The U.S. eventually agreed to the breastfeeding resolution — when Russia backed it. In addition, the U.S. was able to remove the words, “inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children,” and added the phrase “evidence-based” to certain provisions. Though Trump clarified the country’s stance on the breastfeeding measure, many were reminded of his stance on breastfeeding.<doc-sep>The Trump administration is defending its opposition to an international resolution to promote breastfeeding at the United Nations by claiming it was an effort to support choice. “We don’t believe women should be denied access to formula,” President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday. “Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty.” But the US’s position goes against the broad global health consensus, experts say: Breastfeeding is generally the best option for nursing mothers, and they should be told that fact, whatever they decide to do. The formula question is especially important in the developing world because of water quality issues, as most baby formula comes in powder form to be mixed with water. It’s not all that different from the Supreme Court’s recent ruling striking down a California law that required so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which do not provide abortions and often oppose them on religious grounds, to inform their patients that abortions would be available to them elsewhere. And multiple states have laws that require doctors to give inaccurate information about abortion to their patients. What the situations have in common: They’re about the right to accurate information on health. US officials went on the offensive over a breastfeeding resolution pretty much no one else opposed On Saturday, Andrew Jacobs wrote for the New York Times that the US threatened to hit Ecuador with retaliatory trade measures and pull military aid because the South American country proposed an international resolution that encourages breastfeeding. US officials shocked international delegates at the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly in May when they pushed for a resolution promoting breastfeeding remove language asking governments to “protect, support, and protect” the practice. They also took issue with a passage that called for policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that may harm children. The administration hit back at the report, but they didn’t say it wasn’t true. Trump tweeted that the Times report was “fake news,” then seemed to confirm the story, saying the administration doesn’t “believe women should be denied access to formula,” which the resolution wouldn’t do. The failing NY Times Fake News story today about breast feeding must be called out. The U.S. strongly supports breast feeding but we don’t believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2018 A Health and Human Services spokesperson said the US was “fighting to protect women’s abilities to make the best choices for the nutrition of their babies.” She added that women who aren’t able to breastfeed “should not be stigmatized” and should be “equally supported with information and access to alternatives.” No one is saying that women should be stigmatized, or that they shouldn’t be able to decide for themselves. They’re simply saying that they should have all the facts. The Trump administration appears to be siding with the $70 billion baby formula industry to stop them from getting them. “What you are seeing here is the collusion of the US government with the infant formula industry, which is very similar to the collusion of the US government with the National Rifle Association,” Rafael Perez-Escamilla, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, told me. There is a broad consensus that breastfeeding is the best option for nursing mothers when possible The World Health Organization recommends newborn babies be exclusively breastfed up to six months of age, with continued breastfeeding and complementary foods up to two years or beyond. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for at least 12 months. There is mounds of evidence that shows breastfeeding benefits both children and mothers, even in dire circumstances. As Vox’s Julia Belluz lays out, health organizations have long promoted more breastfeeding since science revealed its social and health benefits: Breastfeeding helps protect against a range of illnesses, including ear, throat, and sinus infections. It also protects against pneumonia and diarrhea, which are common killers of infants globally. Human milk contains many hormones, bacteria, sugars, and antibodies that aren’t found in formula, and these have been shown to fight gastrointestinal and respiratory infections in babies. Research has also linked breastfeeding to higher rates of survival during the first year of life, higher intelligence, and lower rates of chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes later on. Finally, breastfeeding seems to boost maternal health, reducing the risk of postpartum hemorrhage right after birth; and in the longer term, Type 2 diabetes and breast, uterine and ovarian cancers among mothers. If breastfeeding were near-universal, some 820,000 lives could be saved every year, a Lancet report estimated. Formula can prove dangerous to babies, especially in areas where water quality is a problem. Aggressive and controversial marketing of infant formula by companies such as Nestle is believed to have caused millions of infant deaths in low- and middle-income countries. Baby formula generally comes in powder form to be mixed with water, which could be contaminated and therefore put babies in grave danger. Formula also might not be used in the recommended way because parents have issues with reading and interpreting labels. And it’s an expensive option, diverting limited family resources. “The most important argument is that if a baby is fed with formula, he or she wouldn’t get the benefits, both biological and emotional, that he or she would get from breastfeeding,” said Ana Langer, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health. Langer said there are some scenarios in which formula feeding is not the better option, but they are limited, such as a mother receiving chemotherapy. Even in cases where mothers are HIV positive, she said breastfeeding is the recommended action, especially if they are receiving treatment. If they are not, breastfeeding may still be the safer option because of the risks of gastrointestinal complications due to water conditions. The malnourishment defense doesn’t add up, either. “For women not to be able to produce enough milk, it has to be almost conditions of starvation,” Perez-Escamilla said. “In terms of milk volume, it’s very strongly protected through hundreds of millions of years of evolution,” he added.<doc-sep>If you want a sense of the sheer pugnacity with which the Trump administration opposes reproductive health care, start here: The United States is now threatening trade war over breastfeeding. It’s an unprecedented and bizarre fracas, sparked by the same qualities that seem destined to define the Trump administration: Proud ignorance, pointless belligerence, and a hostile cluelessness about anything related to women’s bodies. The source of this conflict is a resolution from the UN-affiliated World Health Assembly, which requires countries to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and “limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.” The resolution was in line with the current medical consensus, which says that breast milk provides the best possible nutrition to infants, and contains extra benefits like antibodies that help children’s developing immune systems. As for requiring accurate labels and marketing on baby food, well, that also seems like a non-controversial proposition. Who wants to trick mothers into giving sub-standard nutrition to their babies? Ah, but you know who. Although the resolution was expected to pass without a hitch, the US delegation (a) demanded the removal of the language promoting breastfeeding, (b) refused to pass the resolution at all, and (c) reportedly threatened Ecuador with trade sanctions and withdrawal of military aid if it supported the resolution. The resolution only passed when Russia stepped up to back it. This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. The U.S. waters down language in a U.N. World Health Assembly resolution to encourage #breastfeeding. Under pressure from the Trump administration, language was removed that would have curtailed corporations’ promoting inappropriate foods for infants and young children. pic.twitter.com/mmN4HmNSqv — Sanford School of Public Policy (@DukeSanford) July 9, 2018 There was no clear explanation for any of this. Caitlin Oakley of the US Department of Health and Human Services has said that “many women are not able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons, [and] these women should not be stigmatized; they should be equally supported.” That may be true, but it doesn’t adequately explain the choice to oppose the resolution. Trump has claimed that “we don't believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty,” which is a flat misrepresentation of the resolution and its impact. It’s certainly true that some mothers need to give their babies formula. I was one of them; my daughter had to stay in the NICU after she was born, and didn’t learn to nurse until she’d been home for a few weeks. But families that need to use formula were still free to use it; the resolution asked countries to encourage breastfeeding as the healthiest option, not to forbid the use of formula or penalize parents who had to use a different food source. Nor does the explanation about “helping mothers” add up. Above and beyond any benefits to the baby, breastfeeding has concrete health benefits for mothers. Breastfeeding helps the body to heal from childbirth, by releasing oxytocin that helps to stop uterine bleeding and shrink the uterus back to its normal size and shape. It lowers the risk of ovarian and breast cancer. Some studies suggest that it can help to prevent osteoporosis, heart disease, diabetes, and complications in future pregnancies. To quote a 2010 Scientific American article, “even if technicians could develop a better food for infants, researchers are now realizing that skipping the lactation phase would be problematic for mothers' health.” Nursing is not just a parenting decision; it’s after-care. Bodies that have given birth are designed to recover by lactating, and when that process is interrupted, their health suffers. Breastfeeding access is a reproductive rights and women’s health issue — no different than birth control access, abortion, or affordable pre-natal care. This makes breastfeeding access a reproductive rights and women’s health issue — no different than birth control access, abortion, or affordable pre-natal care. Any country that genuinely cared about the health of women (and childbearing trans people) would be making it easier for people to breastfeed. But the U.S. is not that country. And the Trump administration — which has slapped a gag rule on Planned Parenthood, slashed family planning programs, and is now set to overturn Roe v. Wade with its next SCOTUS pick — is bad on all those other parts of reproductive health as well. That Trump appears to oppose breastfeeding should come as no surprise; this is, after all, a man who reportedly called a woman “disgusting” and ran out of the room in a fit of rage because she’d mentioned using her lunch break to pump milk. Nor is this even his first offense: The GOP has worked relentlessly to slash or gut the ACA, which facilitates breastfeeding by requiring employers to provide lactation breaks and providing pregnant people with free or low-cost breast pumps. Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, is a breastfeeding fan; in her 2017 memoir, she wrote that “[one] of the hardest things about returning to work is trying to continue breastfeeding and watching your milk supply plummet.” But, as always, Ivanka is keeping the things she likes for Ivanka. This is all part of a broader tapestry, which includes attacks on pre-natal care, birth control, abortion, and every other part of reproductive health. Under Trump, the U.S. government exhibits an aggressive lack of knowledge about life with a uterus; it makes policy with seemingly no understanding of what women and trans people need to be healthy, and denies them crucial services. In the process, safe, healthy motherhood has become a luxury item. Jean-Laurent Mosnier – The Young Mother Which raises the question of whose interests the U.S. opposition to breastfeeding does serve. That Trump mentioned mothers in “poverty” is probably not an accident; breastfeeding is important to families, not just because it’s healthy, but because it is free. Formula costs about $50 per month, and potentially more; for working-class and poor families, it can be crucial to make a baby’s milk, rather than buy it.<doc-sep>The U.S. delegation attempted, unsuccessfully, to derail a resolution on the topic of breastfeeding at the World Health Organization's annual meeting in May, The New York Times reported over the weekend. The resolution was aimed at limiting "inaccurate or misleading marketing of formula," and encouraging breastfeeding support in all countries. In opposing the resolution, the U.S. was said to align with the corporate interests of formula manufacturers. The Department of Health and Human Services has since responded, saying the U.S delegation was advocating for a variety of feeding options because some women are unable to breastfeed. "The issues being debated were not about whether one supports breastfeeding," Caitlin Oakley, national spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. "The United States was fighting to protect women’s abilities to make the best choices for the nutrition of their babies." The United States and many countries around the world currently abide by the International Code on Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes, a health policy framework for promoting breastfeeding adopted in 1981. The code urges countries to stop the inappropriate marketing of formula and other substitutes as better for babies and aims to ensure breastmilk substitutes are used safely -- according to the directions, without diluting the formula -- when necessary. As part of global nutrition targets, countries who are part of the WHO have vowed to increase rates of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life to at least 50 percent of mothers by 2025. Breastfeeding rates vary by country, but two out of three infants worldwide are not breastfed for the recommended six months and this rate has not improved in several decades, according to a WHO, UNICEF and International Baby Food Action Network report from 2016. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby’s life, followed by breastfeeding plus other appropriate, nutritious foods thereafter. The recommendations are based on an established body of evidence showing breastmilk is nutritionally, economically and ecologically superior to formula or other breastmilk substitutes. Its many health benefits matter both for newborn and mom. In the mother, breastfeeding decreases the risk of cancer, cardiovascular problems and type 2 diabetes, among many others. In babies, the benefits can include increased IQ, reduced number of infections like colds, stomach viruses, cases of pneumonia, and ear infections, and decreased rates of later obesity. Recent studies have shown that breastfeeding may reduce the risk of allergies and autoimmune conditions like type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. A 2016 report in the medical journal The Lancet estimated that 823,000 child deaths around the world could be prevented each year through universal breastfeeding. Although the U.S. and many other countries promote a "breast is best" policy, many mothers are unable to breastfeed for a variety of reasons like medical challenges, insufficient maternity leave, or inability to afford time away from work often required for exclusive breastfeeding. Some mothers simply feel it isn't the best choice for their families. "Many women are not able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons, these women should not be stigmatized," Oakley added in the statement. "They should be equally supported with information and access to alternatives for the health of themselves and their babies." The WHO said its resolution was aimed, in part, at reducing these barriers and putting more support systems in place to allow for successful breastfeeding -- along with ensuring that formula cannot be advertised in deceiving ways. Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez is a pediatrician.<doc-sep>
The president responded on twitter to The New York Times report. President Donald Trump Monday slammed a New York Times article about U.S. opposition to a World Health Assembly resolution encouraging breastfeeding. Calling the story “fake news,” he tweeted, “The U.S. strongly supports breast feeding but we don’t believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty.” The president’s tweet seems to mischaracterize the resolution, which was introduced in May and sought to encourage member nations to support breastfeeding. The resolution spoke to the health benefits of breastfeeding and included ways that member nations can support mothers who want to breastfeed. It did not encourage them to limit access to formula. The New York Times reported Sunday that the United States “upended deliberations” by arguing in the interest of infant formula manufacturers. The Times also reported that the United States threatened Ecuador, which was planning to introduce the measure, with trade sanctions and the removal of military aid. In the face of the reported threat, Ecuador dropped the resolution. It was eventually sponsored by Russia, which, the Times reported, did not receive similar opposition from the United States. In response to the Times’ story, Health and Human Services spokesperson Caitlin Oakley said “recent reporting attempts to portray the U.S. position at the recent World Health Assembly as ‘anti-breastfeeding’ are patently false.” “The issues being debated, were not about whether one supports breastfeeding,” the statement reads. “The United States was fighting to protect women’s abilities to make the best choices for the nutrition of their babies.” The difficulties that mothers face in breastfeeding have been well documented. A 2011 Surgeon General’s report cited a lack of maternity leave, social norms, and embarrassment as barriers to breastfeeding. The New York Times article addresses shock from both the international and public health communities at the reported U.S. action. In an emailed statement, Georges C. Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, said his organization was “stunned” by the report. “Fortunately, the resolution was adopted with few changes, but it is unconscionable for the U.S. or other government to oppose efforts that promote breastfeeding,” the statement continued. ABC News' Meridith McGraw and Stephanie Ebbs contributed to this report.