World Breastfeeding Week
The 2026 World Breastfeeding Week focuses on scaling proven interventions to improve breastfeeding outcomes globally. The initiative emphasizes the importance of counseling, workplace support, and legislative alignment with international marketing codes to increase exclusive breastfeeding rates.
Why it matters
Breastfeeding is a critical public health intervention that significantly improves infant health outcomes and provides exceptional economic returns for societies.
The 2026 theme for the World Breastfeeding Week is "Breastfeeding for a sustainable start in life: strengthen what works," focuses on tracking progress, evaluating impact, and scaling proven approaches that improve breastfeeding outcomes. It calls on governments, health systems, workplaces, communities, civil society organizations, and families to build on successful experiences and strengthen the "Warm Chain of Support" for breastfeeding.
The interventions are proven. The economic returns are exceptional. The remaining challenge is not knowing what works - it is investing at sufficient scale.
Skilled Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) Counselling
Counselling and education has been shown to substantially increase exclusive breastfeeding rates. A systematic review that pooled estimates across 16 studies found that when intervention is delivered through health facilities, communities and households, exclusive breastfeeding rates increased by 58% .
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