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NT Bureau
Chennai, Aug 7:
 

K Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha MP, looking at the dishes exhibited by the students at an intercollegiate contest on diet preparation held today at MOP Vaishnav College for Women.

        Private companies and government departments were told to provide an isolated, secure place for mothers to breast feed their children during office hours.

        Though the government was creating awareness on breast feeding the new borns, it has not made any provisions to increased the maternity leave for career women, said

        K Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha MP. She was speaking today at the inauguration of week-long campaign for breast feeding which was kicked off at the MOP Vaishnav College for Women.

        Girl students, the would-be mothers, were called upon to fight for their rights like the extension of three-month given for maternity leave which was inadequate.

        Nearly 40 per cent of infant deaths could be prevented if mothers breast feed their babies, said Kanimozhi. 'Increasing number of women take to bottle feeding their infants due to societal pressures,' she noted.

        Mothers tend to feed the babies with milk powder to make them chubby faced due to long-held belief that such toddlers were healthy, she said, though it was not true. 'Putting on weight in early stages of life is an unhealthy attitude that is spreading fast,' she said.

        Citing a recent survey, V K Subburaj, Secretary, Health Department, said only 38 per cent of women followed correct procedures of breast feeding. The figure was slightly better in Tamilnadu with about 48 per cent of mothers adopting the right procedures, he said. Women should have a right diet to ward-off life-style related diseases. More than 60 per cent of pregnant women and over 50 per cent of adolescent girls were suffering from anaemia-related disorders. Iodine deficiency was also a major cause for death of mothers in the first month of delivery, he said.

        Students from city colleges took part in a contest for diet preparation and exhibited their dishes under the banner of Traditional low-cost diet for a lactating mother'.