Children’s right to breastfeeding

regulation of children’s right to breastfeeding in Ukraine in the lightof healthy children’s nutrition international standards

Abstract

This scholarly journal article is aimed at raising the social awareness in Ukraine to the benefits of breastfeeding children, the risks
associated with the formula feeding, and the need for international marketing standards compliance of artificial infants’ and toddlers’ foods in Ukraine. The author is a Ukrainian lawyer and a U.S. licensed attorney, Master of Laws at Kyiv Shevchenko University IIR and the Univeristy of Chicago Law School, and a women’s rights activist with the firsthand experience in both countries. The article reviews the governmnetal duty of care for the health of children in Ukraine, and offers a governmental policy program as the foundation to launch the breastfeeding campaign in Ukraine based on the examples of the European Union countries and most states of the U.S.A. The qualitative research methodology delivered alarming results on the state of regulation of marketing of artificial baby foods in Ukraine, which is one of the few European countries not to comply with the WHO’s International Code. The absence of breastfeeding laws, or regulations in Ukraine is surprising for a European country. The quantitative research methods also revealed that though many Ukrainians follow traditional believes, as soon as mothers tackle any difficulties with breastfeeding, they give up for formula. According to polls conducted by the author,
breastfeeding-uneducated medical providers encourage such choices of theirs. One of the few credible sources available on the breastfeedig issues, and hence used for this research, are the UNICEF and World Bank web portals. Otherwise, there is little data on the breastfeeding and artificial baby foods in Ukraine. The intended audience of the article are decision-makers and mothers, above all,
as well as general public in Ukraine.