HSE’s attitude to breastfeeding throws babies out with bathwater

Why has the country with the worst breastfeeding rate in the developed world just axed its international breastfeeding development programme?

The Baby Friendly Health Initiative (BFHI) set up by the WHO and Unesco in 1991, which runs in 156 countries and has been in Ireland since 1998, has just been totalled.

The HSE stopped its funding last year and, after a year’s pleading and campaigning, the charity this week called it quits.