Who’s heard about World Breastfeeding Week? Well, if you haven’t we’re going to give you the 411 on exactly what’s happening.
When and where is World Breastfeeding Week celebrated?
From August 1 to August 7 World Breastfeeding Week is being celebrated in over 170 countries across the world. It isn’t the first time either. In fact, this is the 20th World Breastfeeding Week to be held.
What exactly is the aim of World Breastfeeding Week?
The ultimate aim of World Breastfeeding Week is to protect, promote and support the practice of breastfeeding.
The official logo of the 20th World Breastfeeding Week
Courtesy of https://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/
Organisations, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF, support the Global Strategy to reduce infant malnutrition and poverty by encouraging breastfeeding and raising awareness for the many local, regional and national policies and programmes of the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA). The WABA, WHO and UNICEF all support breastfeeding as the exclusive source of nutrition for infants up to 6 months old and as a partial source of nutrition in addition to smaller meals made up of nutritious, local foods for infants up to and beyond 2 years of age. They support these practices, because they have been found to be the best source of nutrition for infants in the developed and developing world and they want every child to grow up healthily and happily.
Why hold World Breastfeeding Week?
World Breastfeeding Week is very important, because, according to a report by UNICEF, every year of the 136.7 million children born, only 32.6% are exclusively breastfed during their first 6 months of life. This means 67.4% of children born every year are not receiving the nutrients they need.
What are the specific objectives for 2012’s World Breastfeeding Week?
This year the WABA have five primary objectives according to https://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/:
1. To recall the achievements of the last 20 years of World Breastfeeding Week.
2. To celebrate all successful local, regional and national breastfeeding programmes and policies.
3. To assess the Global Strategy for the feeding of infants and young children.
4. To bridge any gaps between current breastfeeding programmes and policies across the globe.
5. To raise public awareness for today’s breastfeeding programmes and policies.
Breastfeeding is the best source of nutrients for your baby
Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Do you have any plans for World Breastfeeding Week?