Supporting breastfeeding for healthy beginnings, hopeful futures

Promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding should be a key goal of public health in the 21^st century. Yet many women struggle to breastfeed or opt not to, often in the absence of adequate support across policy, societal, and healthcare systems.

This blog sets out why policies to support as many parents as possible to choose breastfeeding are more needed than ever.

Less than half of babies breastfed worldwide

Once common, lower breastfeeding rates are associated with the advent of pasteurised and commercial infant formula milk. However, as modern science advanced, we now understand much more about the benefits of breastfeeding.

While infant formula may adequately meet the nutritional needs of babies, and should be available and affordable when needed, breastfeeding offers multifaceted benefits for both mothers and babies that cannot be acquired via breastmilk substitutes.

These benefits for babies include:

• protection from infection
• better dental health
• better digestion
• learning important feeding responses such as knowing when they are full.

These benefits are not temporary; they help mothers and babies over their life. Our research shows that breastfeeding protects mothers against breast cancer, and protects children against excess weight gain, and living with overweight and obesity.

Yet, globally, fewer than half of all babies under 6 months old are exclusively breastfed, as recommended by the World Health Organization. Current and future generations will, thus, miss out on these important benefits and increase their vulnerability to ill-health in their futures.

Supporting women to breastfeed

Nonetheless, breastfeeding comes with challenges for many parents. We’ve set out what governments should prioritise in our policy factsheet on breastfeeding and cancer risk. This outlines the importance of offering support in healthcare settings, alongside fiscal and legal policies such as appropriate parental leave, and stricter marketing regulations on infant formula and other follow-on milks marketed for babies and young children.

We know that supportive environments are key in ensuring that appropriate and well-designed support for breastfeeding is offered in healthcare and community settings. This means counselling on feeding is offered as part of antenatal care, as well as when a baby is born, to support continued and exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months and beyond.

In many settings, these services may be understaffed or not prioritised. Yet they are key to helping parents and mothers feel supported, rather than left to manage a complex process by themselves.

Legal policies are also important, and include:

• parental leave,
• enabling women to breastfeed at work and study, or
• protecting breastfeeding in public area.

They can create an environment where the needs of mothers and babies are prioritised and normalised. For example, the UK does not offer maternity, paternity or shared parental leave that meets the national minimum wage. Undoubtedly, this creates an environment where parents must prioritise their return to work over their feeding choices.

Breastfeeding is also influenced by commercial factors. Governments should do more to ensure that the marketing of infant formula does not affect the feeding choices people make. Studies in the UK have shown that parents will often choose more expensive formula for infants in a false belief that they are investing in their child’s future, even when the products are nutritionally equivalent.

This shows there is a strong argument that price controls or own brand formulas are warranted given that all products are tightly regulated and comparable in nutritional value.

New products are also emerging at a fast rate, such as milks for babies older than 6 months old. These products are unnecessary, often very high in sugar, and aggressively marketed. Many of these formulas include inappropriate claims on packaging, such as statements about promoting babies’ growth. These are not appropriate and are infringing on international standards set in the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.

Smart investment by governments

Investment in policies to support breastfeeding are not a cost, but rather key investments in the health of future generations and likely lead to cost savings across health systems by avoiding ill-health.

Breastfeeding also has environmental benefits, with the environmental costs of producing, packaging and exporting formula considerable. This cost is set to grow as the infant feeding market is booming, with milks for toddlers as well other commercial baby foods such as food pouches increasingly targeted for commercialisation. The associated profits and importance for local economies hides costs such as environmental degradation, as well as health harms.

Individuals, societies and governments need to recognise the proven benefits of breastfeeding. Policies cannot fall behind what is important for the health, wellbeing and wealth of future generations and must protect parents from inappropriate marketing practices so they can make informed choices about feeding their baby, aided by the necessary support.

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year in the first week of August, championed by WHO, UNICEF, Ministries of Health and civil society around the globe. It’s a time to recognise breastfeeding as a powerful foundation for lifelong health, development, and equity.