World Breastfeeding Week 2024

Closing the Gap: Breastfeeding Support for All

Breastfeeding is essential for optimal child growth, development and health. World Health Organization recommends that breastfeeding should be initiated within the first hour after birth, exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months, and continued breastfeeding until 2 years of age or beyond along with the introduction of complementary foods. Mothers in all their diversity need strong support systems for their children to be optimally breastfed.

In the Western Pacific Region, exclusively breastfeeding for the first 6 months remains challenging, with only 38% of infants reported between 2016 and 2022 based on available data.^[1] The region is not immune from the pervasive, personalized and powerful formula milk marketing that undermines breastfeeding.^[2] Therefore, one of the breastfeeding supports is to put an end to exploitative formula milk marketing.

According to the latest status report 2024, eleven countries in the Western Pacific Region lack legal measures on the International Code of Marketing for Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions (herein termed as ‘the Code’), one of the lowest adoption rates of the Code across WHO regions.^[3] Amongst sixteen countries that adopted legal measures, only six countries are substantially aligned with the Code, while the others are either moderately aligned (n=3) or adopted only some provisions (n=7) of the Code. Further analyses reveal gaps in the region when implementing the Code, particularly on controlling informational/ educational materials on infant and young child feeding and engagement with health workers and systems (Figure 1).

World Breastfeeding Week 2024, with the theme of ‘Closing the Gap: Support for All’ presents a timely reflection and opportunity to strengthen the protection, support and promotion of breastfeeding. Policymakers, health workers, communities, societies and families are integral to the multi-level support to ensure women feel able to breastfeed anytime, anywhere – and work to improve protection of health and rights of women and babies. Find out more about the World Breastfeeding Week 2024 here.

Figure 1. Exclusive breastfeeding prevalence (latest survey) and legal status of the Code

Abbreviations: IYCF = infant and young child feeding; max = maximum score of the corresponding category; N/A = not applicable.

Notes:

Darker blue colour in the ‘Sub-total scores (by category) for legal status of the Code’ columns represent higher score.
The colour in the column of 'Legal status of the Code' refers to:
- Green: Substantially aligned with the Code (encompassing a significant set of provisions of the Code, total score of 75-100)
- Yellow: Moderately aligned with the Code (encompassing a majority of the provisions of the Code, score of 50 - <75)
- Orange: Some provisions of the Code (covering less than half of the provisions of the Code, score of <50)
- Red: No legal measures (either no action, voluntary agreements or other non-legal measures)

References:

¹United Nations Children’s Fund, Division of Data, Analysis, Planning and Monitoring (2023). Global UNICEF Global Databases: Infant and Young Child Feeding: Exclusive breastfeeding, New York, October 2023.

²World Health Organization & United Nations Children's Fund (‎UNICEF)‎. (‎2022)‎. How the marketing of formula milk influences our decisions on infant feeding. World Health Organization. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/352098.

³World Health Organization, United Nations Children's Fund (‎UNICEF)‎ & International Baby Foods Action Network. (‎2024)‎. Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the International Code, status report 2024. World Health Organization. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/376854.