Support breastfeeding for a Healthier Planet
Breastfeeding is essential for a child’s nutrition and women’s health. Inadequate feeding practices during the first months of a child’s life can cause damage to the health and have consequences such as delayed linear growth, intellectual difficulties and a greater chance of chronic non-communicable diseases in the future.
The World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and the wider nutrition community recommend the initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth; exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life; and continued breastfeeding for two years or more, together with safe, nutritionally adequate, age appropriate diet starting at six months of age.
The World Breastfeeding Week, an annual event highlighting the critical importance of breastfeeding for children, took place this year from 1-7 August. The campaign started in 1992 and since 2016 it has been aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To mark the campaign in Brazil, the Ministry of Health launched its annual campaign to encourage breastfeeding and presented results from a breastfeeding survey on Thursday 4th August.
Breastfeeding rates are increasing in Brazil, according to preliminary results from the Ministry of Health’s National Study on Food and Child Nutrition (Enani). A total of 14,505 children under five were evaluated between February 2019 and March 2020. More than half (53%) of Brazilian children continue to be breastfed in the first year of life. Among children under six months of age, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding is 45.7%. In children under four months of age the rate is at 60%.
Benefits
Breastfeeding can reduce mortality by preventable causes by up to 13% in children under five years of age and for each year of breastfeeding the risk of breast cancer reduces by 6%. Breastfeeding also lowers treatment costs in health systems and helps to fight hunger and malnutrition in all its forms, as well as ensuring food security for children around the world.
Breast milk is the “gold standard” of food. It is the most complete food for the baby and has everything it needs to develop in a healthy way until the age of six months. It also does not harm the environment and provides children with the opportunity to have a healthy start in life.
