National Breastfeeding Committee switches to the Max Rubner-Institut

This switch has to do with the Institute of Child Nutrition which opened at MRI in February 2019. Research is to be conducted there, in the future, into the early influences which determine the risk of overweight and nutrition-related diseases. The scientists will also be examining the nutritional behaviour of children and adolescents from their birth until the age of 18.

The Institute of Child Nutrition aims at developing strategies for national breastfeeding and nutritional monitoring. They are also to conduct further research on the preventive health effects of breastfeeding for both mother and child. The affiliation of the National Breastfeeding Committee with the Institute of Child Nutrition will facilitate the practical exchange of scientific information and ideas in future.

The main task of the National Breastfeeding Committee is the promotion of breastfeeding in Germany from a health political and social point of view. The Committee advises the national government, issues directives and recommendations and supports initiatives to remove existing obstacles to breastfeeding.

With the establishment of the National Breastfeeding Committee, the national government endorsed the Innocenti Declaration on the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding, thereby fulfilling a requirement of the 45th World Health Assembly of 1992. The breastfeeding committee was founded at the Robert Koch Institute in 1994 and transferred to the former Federal Institute for Consumer Health Protection and Veterinary Medicine (BgVV) in 1999. The National Breastfeeding Committee has been attached to the BfR since 2002.

The switch brings with it a change to the contact e-mail address for inquiries to the breastfeeding committee: [email protected]

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For more information:
https://www.mri.bund.de/de/themen/nationale-stillkommission

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a scientifically independent institution within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in Germany. It advises the Federal Government and Federal Laender on questions of food, chemical and product safety. The BfR conducts its own research on topics that are closely linked to its assessment tasks.

The Max Rubner-Institut (MRI), Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food, focuses its research activities mainly on consumer protection in the food and nutrition sector. It advises the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in these areas. Important fields of research are the nutrition of infants, children, adolescents and adults, prevention of nutrition-related diseases, nutritional behaviour, nutritional-physiological and health value of foods and food safety and quality.

This text version is a translation of the original German text which is the only legally binding version.