[Promoting breast feeding and the public health service]

This paper deals with the establishment of the National Breastfeeding Committee at the Robert-Koch-Institut and its activities. As the highest level scientific and advisory board for the German Federal Health Ministry the institute obtained permission from the state authorities to carry out a survey of the local health offices. A finding of this survey was that the different health offices apparently place different priorities on advising mothers in regard to breastfeeding. Some health offices offer medical counselling and others indicate that their counselling is carried out by non-medical personnel. In some cases the health offices reported a supply but no demand. We believe that the public health services should at least provide information on breastfeeding counselling in the community and on training opportunities for counsellors. The National Breastfeeding Commission will collect such information and provide it to the health offices and also give advice in the case of problems with regard to breastfeeding.