In this issue, we are featuring an interview with two medical doctors from Ukraine, who are specialists in breastfeeding, and work with the implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) in Ukraine. The authors met during the Eleventh BFHI Network Meeting of Country Coordinators from Industrialized Countries, Eastern Europe, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, in Brussels in June 2022 (Hernández-Aguilar, M. T., 2022). Ukrainian citizens have lived in a war situation since February 24, 2022, when Russia first attacked; this has had a huge impact on infant feeding issues.
reports of data from original research.• Review Papers -comprehensive, authoritative, reviews within the journal's scope.• Short Reports -brief reports of data from original research.• Methodology Papers -Papers that present different methodological approaches that can be used to investigate problems in a relevant scientific field and to encourage innovation.• Policy Case Studies -brief articles on policy development at a regional or national level.• Study Protocols -articles describing a research protocol of a study.
Leah Margulies was Director of the Infant Formula Program at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility in New York City (NYC) from 1975 to 1985. She is a founder of the International Nestle Boycott, Corporate Accountability (formerly INFACT), and one of the founders of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN). She was hired at UNICEF in 1982 to set up the legal office for implementation of the International Code of Marketing Breastmilk Substitutes, as part of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. Previously, she was legal advisor to the Environment Unit of the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations. From 2006 to 2016, she was Project Director of LawHelpNY at the NYC Bar Association. Currently, she works for a legal non-profit, representing low-income Brooklynites, defending them against eviction. She is a lawyer, a Second Wave Feminist, and a member of Veteran Feminists of America. She is also a musician and founding member of a pioneering women’s rock band that played at the first national women’s march for abortion rights in Washington, DC, 1972.
Health workers' (HWs') perspectives on the quality of maternal and newborn care (QMNC) are not routinely collected. In this cross-sectional study, we aimed to document HWs' perspectives on QMNC around childbirth in 12 World Health Organization (WHO) European countries.
Multi-country studies assessing the quality of maternal and newborn care (QMNC) during the COVID-19 pandemic, as defined by WHO Standards, are lacking.Women who gave birth in 12 countries of the WHO European Region from March 1, 2020 - March 15, 2021 answered an online questionnaire, including 40 WHO Standard-based Quality Measures.21,027 mothers were included in the analysis. Among those who experienced labour (N=18,063), 41·8% (26·1%- 63·5%) experienced difficulties in accessing antenatal care, 62% (12·6%-99·0%) were not allowed a companion of choice, 31·1% (16·5%-56·9%) received inadequate breastfeeding support, 34·4% (5·2%-64·8%) reported that health workers were not always using protective personal equipment, and 31·8% (17·8%-53·1%) rated the health workers' number as "insufficient". Episiotomy was performed in 20·1% (6·1%-66·0%) of spontaneous vaginal births and fundal pressure applied in 41·2% (11·5% -100%) of instrumental vaginal births. In addition, 23·9% women felt they were not treated with dignity (12·8%-59·8%), 12·5% (7·0%-23·4%) suffered abuse, and 2·4% (0·1%-26·2%) made informal payments. Most findings were significantly worse among women with prelabour caesarean birth (N=2,964). Multivariate analyses confirmed significant differences among countries, with Croatia, Romania, Serbia showing significant lower QMNC Indexes and Luxemburg showing a significantly higher QMNC Index than the total sample. Younger women and those with operative births also reported significantly lower QMNC Indexes.Mothers reports revealed large inequities in QMNC across countries of the WHO European Region. Quality improvement initiatives to reduce these inequities and promote evidence-based, patient-centred respectful care for all mothers and newborns during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond are urgently needed.The study was financially supported by the Institute for Maternal and Child Health IRCCS Burlo Garofolo, Trieste, Italy.ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04847336.
Annelies Allain has been at the forefront of global efforts to support and promote breastfeeding for more than 30 years. Her accomplishments continue to affect all of us who work with breastfeeding families. Born in the Netherlands in 1945, Annelies Allain-van Elk received a scholarship and completed a BA from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, USA. Back in Europe, she obtained a BA in French language and literature (University of Geneva, Switzerland) as well as a translator’s diploma. After 4 years working in West Africa and visits to South America, she returned to Geneva to obtain an MA in development studies. She is fluent in English, French, and Dutch and has working knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. Ms. Allain was a co-founder of IBFAN (1979) and the coordinator of IBFAN Europe (1980-1984). In 1984, she moved to Penang, Malaysia, and IBFAN work soon took over as a full-time job. She was instrumental in developing the Code Documentation Centre (1985) and by 1991 it became a foundation (ICDC) registered in the Netherlands. Subsequently, the Centre has trained over 2,000 officials from 148 countries about the International Code, making it the world’s top International Code implementation institution. Among her many other education and advocacy activities, Ms. Allain was a co-founder of WABA (1990) and for many years has been a consultant with UNICEF and WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office on International Code implementation and monitoring. In this interview she provides a firsthand account of how most of the major global breastfeeding protection efforts influencing our current situation came into being. (This is a verbatim interview: MA = Maryse Arendt; AA = Annelies Allain.)
Abstract Objective To investigate the quality of maternal and newborn care (QMNC) during childbirth in Luxembourg from women's perspectives. Methods Women giving birth in facilities in Luxembourg between March 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021, answered a validated online WHO standards‐based questionnaire as part of the multicountry IMAgINE EURO study. Descriptive and multivariate quantile regression analyses were performed. Results A total of 493 women were included, representing 5.2% of women giving birth in the four maternity hospitals in Luxembourg during the study period. Most quality measures suggested high QMNC, although specific gaps were observed: 13.4% ( n = 66) of women reported not being treated with dignity, 9.1% ( n = 45) experienced abuse, 42.9% ( n = 30) were not asked for consent prior to instrumental vaginal birth, 39.3% ( n = 118) could not choose their birth position, 27% ( n = 133) did not exclusively breastfeed at discharge (without significant differences over time), 20.5% ( n = 101) reported an insufficient number of healthcare professionals, 20% ( n = 25) did not receive information on the newborn after cesarean, and 41.2% ( n = 203) reported lack of information on newborn danger signs before discharge. Multivariate analyses highlighted higher reported QMNC indexes among women born outside Luxembourg and delivering with a gynecologist, and significantly lower QMNC indexes in women with the highest education levels and those delivering in the hospital offering some private services. Conclusions Despite maternal reports suggesting an overall high QMNC in Luxembourg, improvements are needed in specific aspects of care and communication, mostly related to maternal autonomy, respect, and support, but also number and competencies of the health workforce.
Sofia Quintero Romero graduated as a medical doctor at Universidad del Rosario, Bogotà, Colombia, in 1977. She spent a compulsory rural year working in a remote indigenous community in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Columbia. In 1979 she worked in Bolivia for Terre des Hommes and Oxfam, evaluating their health projects with the Aymara Indians and in the tin mines. She had to leave Colombia for political reasons and went to England, where she obtained, in 1981, an MSc in Community Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). That's where she met her husband, Adriano Cattaneo. She then worked in Mozambique and Nicaragua where she was in charge of maternal and child health services at the regional level. Since 1990, she devoted her time to the protection, promotion, and support of breastfeeding. Sofia obtained a PhD in Maternal and Child Health at the University of Bologna, Italy, and a Diploma in Breastfeeding Theory and Practice at the Child Health Institute in London UK. She taught hundreds of breastfeeding courses for health professionals and peer counsellors in Italy and in dozens of countries abroad, using the World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund (WHO/UNICEF) manuals. In the past 15 years, she changed her approach for breastfeeding education to biological nurturing. Sofia has been a member of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) since 1992 and coordinated the Nestlé Boycott in Italy. She retired in 2018.
Marina Ferreira Rea is a Brazilian medical doctor. She has a masters and a doctorate degree in public health from the University of São Paulo (USP). She specialized in breastfeeding at Wellstart International, and completed post-doctoral research at Columbia University, New York, USA, focusing on working women and breastfeeding. She was a researcher at the Health Institute at Columbia University in New York, the Center for Population and Family Health, and at the postgraduate studies, Nutrition in Public Health, University of São Paulo, where she advised many students and published many articles and books (a few selected below). She was a Coordinator of International Breastfeeding Actions at the World Health Organization (Geneva), in the early 1990s, when actions like the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, breastfeeding counseling, and other courses were started. During this same period, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) and World Breastfeeding Week were initiated. In 1981 she participated in the launching of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. Marina Rea is a member of the International Baby Food Action Network and its Latin American policy committee, and is the founder of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) Brazil group. Since 2017, she has been a member of the IBFAN Global Council. She is now retired but continues to volunteer as an IBFAN member. She has two daughters and four grandchildren. A more detailed curriculum vitae in Portuguese can be found here: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8193850878281835 (MR = Marina Rea; MA = Maryse Arendt).
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