World Breastfeeding Week is an annual event held between 1st and 7th August every year to promote breastfeeding. It has been observed as a national event in Bangladesh since 2010 by declaration of the Honorable Prime Minister.
This year’s theme “Breastfeeding: a key to sustainable development’’ aims to focus attention on how breastfeeding is a key element of our wellbeing from the start of life, how to respect each other and care for the world that we share. The event will also focus on breastfeeding as a fundamental driver to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
WHO estimates reveal that increasing breastfeeding to near-universal levels could save more than 800,000 lives every year, the majority of lives saved being among infants under 6 months of age. Evidence shows that children who are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and continue breastfeeding along with complementary feeding, perform better in intelligence tests, are also less likely to be overweight or obese, and less prone to noncommunicable diseases later in life, than children who are not exclusively breastfed.
At this year’s World Health Assembly, a resolution to end inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children was adopted. This is necessary to ensure that countries, in their national regulations, explicitly define follow-up formula and growing-up milk as breastmilk substitutes and thus bring them under their Code laws. To this end, WHO and other UN partners have created a Network for Global Monitoring and Support for Implementation of the International Code (NetCode) with the purpose of strengthening capacity for Code monitoring, adherence and implementation. We commend the Government of Bangladesh for its vigorous action in promulgating and implementing the Breast Milk Substitutes Act 2013, which includes amendments on complete restriction/ban on advertisement of breast milk substitutes, baby foods and children’s food supplements and their equivalents.
Now, it is time for us to collectively act to prevent the double burden of persistent undernutrition and emerging overweight and obesity, and the associated risk of non-communicable diseases, by promoting and protecting breastfeeding practices. WHO congratulates Bangladesh for endorsing the National Nutrition Policy 2015 which protects, promotes and supports breastfeeding
WHO continues to pledge its full support for strengthening breastfeeding promotion and protection activities. I wish a successful World Breastfeeding Week 2016.