Across the world, maternal and child health advocates and researchers are celebrating World Breastfeeding Week—a collective moment to acknowledge both challenges and opportunities in supporting the health and wellbeing of children and mothers globally. This year’s celebration emphasizes policy actions that promote women’s access to skilled breastfeeding counselling, a pivotal facet of breastfeeding support. Counselling can extend the duration of breastfeeding; analysis indicates that increasing rates of exclusive breastfeeding could save the lives of 820,000 children a year.
Breastfeeding, however, is a complex topic that is shaped by a whole host of social determinants of health and cultural trends. We’ve pulled out a handful of key resources from the GHELI repository that can help you explore this topic in greater depth:
- Lancet Series: Breastfeeding (The Lancet 2016): Summarizes short- and long-term global trends in breastfeeding, the impact of investment in breastfeeding, and effectiveness of promotion interventions.
- Are the World’s Richest Countries Family Friendly? (UNICEF 2019): Reviews family policies in 41 high- and middle-income countries, compiling data on breastfeeding, paid parental leave, and childcare.
- Breastfeeding: A Mother’s Gift, for Every Child (UNICEF 2018): Examines importance of breastfeeding for child survival and development, providing data about breastfeeding prevalence and disparities across 123 countries.
The digital repository represents one of the Incubator’s many efforts to curate and disseminate high-quality educational public goods. Explore our collection of interdisciplinary tools and resources yourself!