In 2018, a World Health Assembly resolution endorsed World Breastfeeding Week as an important health promotion strategy. Supported by World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and many Ministries of Health and civil society partners, World Breastfeeding Week is held in the first week of August every year.
This week celebrates breastfeeding parents in all their diversity, throughout their breastfeeding journeys, while focusing on ways families, societies, communities and health workers can help or encourage every breastfeeding parent. We must recognize breastfeeding parents, ensure they are seen and heard, and share relatable human experiences about breastfeeding and the importance of multi-level support.
How to support breastfeeding and why it's important
Breastfeeding support comes in many forms – from staff members welcoming breastfeeding in your local café to helpful advice from a health worker or maternity protections from your government. These all help protect the health and rights of parents and babies.
To help support parents in breastfeeding as long as they would like, we can focus on:
- Policies and attitudes that value parents and breastfeeding
- A parent and breastfeeding-friendly health-care system
- Respect for autonomy and the right to breastfeed anytime, anywhere
- Solidarity and community support
When breastfeeding is protected and supported, parents are more than twice as likely to breastfeed their infants. This is a shared responsibility – families, communities, health-care workers, policymakers, and other decision-makers all play a central role by:
- Increasing investment in programs and policies that protect and support breastfeeding
- Implementing and monitoring family-friendly workplace policies, such as paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks and access to affordable and good-quality childcare
- Ensuring parents who are at-risk in emergencies or under-represented communities receive breastfeeding protection and support in line with their unique needs, including timely, effective breastfeeding counselling as part of routine health coverage
- Improving monitoring of breastfeeding programs and policies to inform and further improve breastfeeding rates
Parents everywhere have the right to respectful breastfeeding counselling from trained health-care providers. We can all help ensure parents feel able to breastfeed anytime, anywhere – and work to improve the position and condition of parents at home, at work and in public life.
How a grassroots organization is promoting Indigenous milk practices
The Indigenous Milk Medicine Collective (IMMC) is a grassroots organization dedicated to promoting Native-first food experiences, healing, wellness, and equity in Indigenous milk practices. IMMC promotes milk medicine and upholds traditional teachings to increase visibility, cultural preservation and envisions a world where Indigenous communities are transformed and uplifted with access to the tradition and knowledge of milk medicine.
Indigenous Milk Medicine Week (IMMW) honours and celebrates traditional first food practices and the vital role they play in Indigenous health. It aims to showcase the diversity of Native breastfeeding and lactation experiences. It also acknowledges the unique challenges faced by Native and Indigenous milk medicine carriers and their families. Furthermore, the week honours and supports the Milk Medicine journeys of individuals and communities across Turtle Island (the name for North America) and beyond.
It is not just milk; it is the four directions that come together to make a greater connection. Others only think of lactation, but we see the whole story.
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