World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated from 1st August to 7th August every year. The week aims at commemorating the Innocenti Declaration of 1990 which was an effort by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF to protect, promote and support breastfeeding for sustainable development.
First observed in 1992 the breastfeeding week has a different theme every year. The theme for 2021 is “Protect Breastfeeding: A Shared Responsibility.” Through this theme, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) aims at drawing attention towards the need for efforts and investments from all levels of society in order to protect human milk feeding. WABA has also highlighted that scaling up breastfeeding can help prevent 20,000 maternal deaths and 8,23,000 child deaths annually.
Breastfeeding can help equip a baby with a good and healthy start to life. As per the Innocenti Declaration, it also improves health as it reduces the incidence and severity of infectious diseases. As for women’s health, it helps reduce the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
But successful breastfeeding needs support from one’s family, healthcare workers and also the community. Governments the world over must invest to make breastfeeding counseling available for both women and healthcare workers. The need of the hour is to quickly draw up and promote strategies to support breastfeeding.
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