Bottle-feeding ban in PNG

Doctors believe that a “growing and fashionable elite” of Papua New Guinean mothers are setting a bad example to the community by bottle-feeding their babies.

They learnt it from the influence of Euro pean mothers and adopted it as a fashionable trend, the Provincial Medical Officer at Goroka, Dr Cam Bowie, said in May.

“But it’s a dangerous fashion in this com munity because of the problems of sterilis ing the bottles” Dr Bowie said.

Now at least one hospital at Goroka has banned all bottle-feeding, and it doesn’t matter who the mother is. If a mother can’t feed her child naturally, she is

being shown how to use a cup and spoon rather than a bottle.

And the Goroka Hospital is throwing out its own supply of feeding bottles.

Dr Bowie said that bottle-feeding was a health hazard in PNG because most mothers did not have the facilities or the knowledge to sterilise the bottles properly.

Others did not understand the need for a properly-balanced formula, and the result was either sickness or semi-starvation for a large number of babies.

Dr Bowie said that, in any event, the economics of bottle-feeding were beyond many PNG families. The cost to bottle-feed all babies in PNG would run up an imports bill of about KlO million a year.