Global Breast Feeding Week ~ celebrating AUG 1-7

This year’s WABA World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) theme asserts the importance of increasing and sustaining the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding – in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) countdown, and beyond. We call on all celebrants of WBW to Protect, Promote and Support Breastfeeding: it is a vital Life-Saving Goal!

If you are organising an event please let WABA know by making a PLEDGE for your event.

Download and fill the simple Pledge Form, email it to WABA, so we can put it on the Pledge Map on this site! The WBW 2014 Action Folder is available in English, Spanish, and Arabic with more languages coming.

WABA is pleased to announce that the slogan and theme for WBW 2014:

BREASTFEEDING: A Winning Goal – For Life!

WABA is pleased to share the brochure developed jointly by Nutrition and Maternal, Newborn and Child Health colleagues on the crucial link between breastfeeding and newborn survival and health.

Led by UNICEF and WHO, the brochure has been endorsed by a wide array of organizations (17 in total!) who are joining together to advocate, raise attention and strengthen programmatic efforts in order to enable more mothers to breastfeed.

It is quite exciting to see global momentum to support breastfeeding growing through a variety of advocacy initiatives, including the Every Newborn Action Plan which is integrating breastfeeding counselling and support as an essential part of community maternal and newborn care programmes.

We hope that you will be able to use the brochure in your own advocacy efforts during World Breastfeeding Week and beyond.

We encourage you to share this with partners.

The WABA Coordinated World Breastfeeding Week is part of the gBICS (Global Breastfeeding Initiative for Child Survival) Programme entitled: “Enhancing Breastfeeding Rates Contributes to Women’s Rights, Health, and a Sustainable Environment“.

The gBICS_Web_Version>gBICS Programme aims to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development – beyond the Millennium Development Goals – by scaling up breastfeeding and infant and young child interventions and transforming Policies into Practice which contributes to efforts aimed at addressing climate change and gender inequality in the framework of human rights. WABA is grateful to NORAD (the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) for its support of gBICS.

WABA would also like to acknowledge the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organisation (WHO), as well as the participation of our Core Partners – Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM), International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA), La Leche League International (LLLI), and Wellstart International – in the successful coordination of World Breastfeeding Week.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are meant to be achieved by 2015 – next year! Although much progress has taken place, there is still a lot of “unfinished business“. Here are some examples: Poverty has gone down, but 1 in 8 people still go to bed hungry. Undernutrition affects about a quarter of all children globally. Overweight, the other form of malnutrition is becoming more common too. In the last 2 decades, child mortality has decreased by about 40%, but still almost 7 million children under five die each year, mainly from preventable diseases. As the overall rate of under-five mortality has declined, the proportion of neonatal deaths (during the first month of life) comprises an increasing proportion of all child deaths. Globally, maternal mortality has declined from 400 per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 210 in 2010, but fewer than half of women deliver in baby-friendly maternities. By protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding, YOU can contribute to each of the MDGs in a substantial way.

Exclusive breastfeeding and adequate complementary feeding are key interventions for improving child survival, potentially saving about 20% of children under five. Let’s review how the UN’s Scientific Committee on Nutrition illustrated how breastfeeding is linked to each of the Millennium Development Goals.