Ms Geraldine Cahill:

I will respond to the question on medication. In situations like those outlined by the Senator, they have to be dealt with on a case by case basis. I come back to the education of obstetricians and people in other medical fields. The first thing they say to women is an almost blanket statement that they cannot breastfeed because they are on medication. In fact, a lot of research has been done on medication. Some people may need to check change their medication to a lower risk one in order to breastfeed their babies. Others will not need to do that. It depends on the severity of their condition and what medication they are on.

Dr. Tom Hale in Texas is doing a lot of work on this area. He has done a lot of testing. Every lactation consultant that I know has an app with all of his information on the risk factors for every drug so that people can discuss with mothers who have a condition what the risk factors are and whether medication is high or low risk. Mothers can then make their own informed decisions as to how they are going to feed their babies.

On the implementation of the WHO code, the Government said today that it will fully implement all of the recommendations and resolutions. That will mean that all of the formula advertising will disappear off our televisions. That will be significant. There are two and three year olds who are able to say, "That is the best milk" because they have seen advertising on all sorts of platforms. That is significant. I cannot remember any of the other points so I will stop now.