Breastfeeding is popular and widespread in Hungary, and feeding babies with mother's milk is a top family priority.
Mother's milk is the most suitable food for babies from birth to six months of age, wrote the Secretary of State responsible for families of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation on his Facebook page on the occasion of breastfeeding week.
Ágnes Hornung emphasized: breastfeeding means more than just feeding the child, it facilitates the creation of the bond between the mother and the child, the primordial trust, and also reduces the risk of developing certain diseases for both the baby and the mother.
The Secretary of State announced that 90 percent of Hungarian mothers start breastfeeding their children in the hospital after giving birth, and 94 percent of babies receive breast milk in the days following birth, and the nursing care, which is considered a Hungarian standard, plays a significant role in this.
The government wants to use as many means as possible to support the feeding of babies with breast milk, so the goal is for all expectant mothers to be able to receive lactation counseling in some way, the state secretary added.
Ágnes Hornung also mentioned that premature babies and mothers with breastfeeding difficulties can be helped by the breast milk collection system, which the government wants to further develop, increase the number of breast milk distribution stations from the current 41, and simplify regulations.
Information on the process of requesting and delivering breast milk can be obtained from the institutions providing the service, midwives, and pediatricians, noted the state secretary.
On August 1, 1990, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a statement calling on governments to ensure that mothers can exclusively breastfeed their babies until they are six months old. In 1993, the WHO declared the first of August as World Breast Milk Day, and in connection with this, the first week of August is celebrated as World Breastfeeding Week.
V
MTI
