Extracts below and a comment from me. Read online: https://www.who.int/news/item/04-08-2025-on-world-breastfeeding-week-cou...
On World Breastfeeding Week, countries urged to invest in health systems and support breastfeeding mothers
Joint statement by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell
4 August 2025 Joint News Release
'Breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to ensure a baby’s health, development, and survival in the earliest stages of life. It acts as their first vaccine, providing protection against diseases including diarrhoea and pneumonia.
Investing in breastfeeding is an investment in the future, yet only 48 per cent of infants under six months are exclusively breastfed...
Millions of mothers around the world do not receive timely and skilled support in a healthcare setting when they need it most.
Only a fifth of countries include infant and young child feeding training for the doctors and nurses who care for new mothers. This means the majority of the world’s mothers leave hospitals without proper guidance on how to breastfeed their babies and when to introduce complementary feeding.
In many countries, health systems are too often under-resourced, fragmented, or poorly equipped to deliver quality, consistent, evidence-based breastfeeding support...
As we mark World Breastfeeding Week under the theme, “Prioritize breastfeeding: Create sustainable support systems”, WHO and UNICEF are calling on governments, health administrators, and partners to invest in high-quality breastfeeding support, by [...]
ensuring all health service providers are equipped with the skills and knowledge required to support breastfeeding, including in emergency and humanitarian settings
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COMMENT (NPW): Every health worker and every parent needs access to reliable information on breastfeeding. This includes protection from misinformation from breast milk substitute manufacturers.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org