Hong Kong mums told breast is best for baby
EXPECTANT Hong Kong mothers are not only being encouraged to breast-feed their babies but to go public with it.
With World Breast-feeding Week starting today, Dr Patricia Ip, from the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative Committee, said: ''I hope public opinion will soon arrive at the stage where breast-feeding in public will be seen as a natural process.'' She said women could begin to go public by breast-feeding in rooms at friends' homes or storing breast milk in the refrigerator and giving it to the baby when outside.
Most Hong Kong hotels and restaurants said last night they would support women breast-feeding on their premises with some managers adding they would request it was done in the privacy of their toilets.
The manager of Post 97 restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong, Jamie Higgins, said while he agreed with the Mandarin Oriental hotel that breast-feeding in public could be embarrassing, ''I think it would be quite offensive to the other customers''.
But he went on it say if the mother insisted on doing it in the restaurant, he would let her go ahead.
The manager of the Hsun Kaung Restaurant said: ''Even if we didn't stop the mother, I think the staring eyes of the other customers would make her feel uneasy.'' But the Hilton and Peninsula Hotels said they had no objections to mothers breast-feeding in the middle of their restaurants.
Ocean City Restaurant, the East Lake, Lucky House and Winton Restaurants also said they did not mind breast-feeding in public.
Lydia Ling, from the Hong Kong Association for Maternal and Neonatal Health, went a step further and suggested employers should provide daycare centres and special rooms to allow mothers to breast-feed while at work.
A survey carried out by the association for World Breast-feeding Week found a 9.5 per cent increase in the number of women breast-feeding compared with last year.
But doctors said most mothers did not continue breast-feeding after they left the hospital.
''Breast-feeding is good for society because children will be more healthy,'' said Ms Ling.
There is evidence Chinese women are latching on to the idea.
Eliza Lau, who is breast-feeding her second child, said: ''I want to see if this child is really healthier than my first one who was fed on formula.
''If it is really better, maybe I'll even quit work to breast-feed my child.''
