The Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) says all babies in Latin American and the Caribbean should be breastfed within the first hour of life, lamenting that half of babies (52 per cent) in the region are not breastfed within that time.

On Tuesday, PAHO stressed that breast milk is the best source of nutrition for newborns.

In 2017, an estimated 78 million babies — or three in five — were not breastfed within the first hour of life, “putting them at higher risk of death and disease and making them less likely to continue breast feeding,” according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a new report.

Most of these babies are born in low- and middle-income countries, the report says.

PAHO recommended breastfeeding of newborns within the first 60 minutes of life; breastfeeding of babies exclusively until the age of six months, and breastfeeding as a supplement until the age of two years.

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