This is Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English DevelopmentReport.

Health experts commonly advise mothers to feed babies only breastmilk for the first six months. They say no other food is morevaluable to the development of a child. The World HealthOrganization says children can be breastfed as part of their dietfor up to two years or longer. Yet it says only one out of threebabies is fed only breast milk for even just four months.

Breast milk helps protect childrenfrom infections and disease. It can prevent common sicknesses, suchas diarrhea and pneumonia. And it can help babies recover morequickly if they do get sick.

Studies also show that mothers who breastfeed reduce their riskof cancer in the reproductive organs. Breastfeeding also savesmoney, compared to milk substitutes.

The first week in August is World Breastfeeding Week. Thecampaign this year involved the idea of exclusive breastfeeding. TheWorld Alliance for Breastfeeding Action say babies can be fed dropsor syrups with extra vitamins and minerals. But exclusive means noother foods or drinks for six months.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF, the United NationsChildren's Fund, offer some steps for mothers. First, they saybreastfeeding should start within the first hour after a baby'sbirth. Second, the baby should not receive any other food or drink,including water. Third, babies should be breastfed whenever they arehungry – day or night. And, lastly, the agencies say there should beno use of bottles, pacifiers or other equipment.

International health experts say traditional ways to measurechild growth do not recognize things like the importance ofbreastfeeding. So the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is givingmore than six million dollars to the W.H.O. for a six-year project.The money will be used to develop new tools to measure the healthand well-being of young people.

Current growth standards describe how children grow at differenttimes. The new standards will also be linked to motor development.Experts say the message here is that physical growth is not the onlypart of normal development.

Doctor Mercedes de Onis heads the W.H.O. project. She says thecurrent growth standards used by ninety-nine countries do notsupport international health goals. She notes that one of thesegoals is to increase breastfeeding.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss. This is Gwen Outen.