This World Breastfeeding Week, let’s appreciate breastfeeding mums and ensure they get the support they need.
Breastfeeding support comes in many forms – from staff welcoming breastfeeding in your local café to helpful advice from a health worker or maternity protections from your government.
These all help protect the health and rights of women and babies
Mothers who brestfeed need:
- Policies and attitudes that value women and breastfeeding
- A women and breastfeeding-friendly health care system
- Respect for women’s autonomy and her right to breastfeed anytime, anywhere
- Solidarity and community support
This year we want to really recognize breastfeeding mums, ensure they are seen and heard, and share relatable human experiences about breastfeeding and the importance of multi-level support.
World Breastfeeding Week is held in the first week of August every year.
The theme for 2024 is Closing the gap: Breastfeeding support for all.
The campaign will celebrate breastfeeding mothers in all their diversity, throughout their breastfeeding journeys, while showcasing the ways families, societies, communities and health workers can have the back of every breastfeeding mother.
This World Breastfeeding Week, let’s appreciate breastfeeding mums and ensure they get the support they need.
Universal neonatal screening for eye anomalies is recommended. This should be accompanied by diagnostic and treatment services for infants in whom an abnormality is detected.
An estimated 1.14 million children aged 0-15 years are blind or have severe visual impairment due to eye conditions. The main causes of blindness are congenital and developmental cataracts, corneal scarring, congenital ocular anomalies, retinal dystrophies, glaucoma, and retinopathy of prematurity.
Since 1991, the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) has sought to motivate healthcare teams caring for newborns to provide the best support for successful breastfeeding, based on the Ten Steps.
Applying emollient or moisturizing creams or any other product on the skin of newborns is not recommended.
At birth, human skin is covered with an acid mantle, which is key to maintaining the baby’s defenses. Although there is no scientific evidence about the harmful effects of emollients, no benefits have been demonstrated in their application.
Therefore, it is not recommended to apply emollients or other products on the skin. If in doubt, it is always advisable to ask your health care team.
Early childhood (birth to 8 years of age) is key to achieving a human being’s maximum developmental potential. This stage comprises the most sensitive period for brain development. This is the time of life when children's developmental potential is most susceptible to environmental stimuli and early experiences, which influence learning, health, behavior and, in the long term, adult social relationships and well-being.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year, about 8 million children are born with a birth defect in the world. Congenital anomalies cause 10 per cent of all newborn deaths and many of the babies who survive are at risk of carrying a lifelong disability if they do not have timely access to high-quality care.
However, the burden of death and disability differs by place of birth and is disproportionately high in low- and middle-income countries.
After childbirth, it is usual for some mothers to suffer from depression or anxiety. This is due to multiple causes and, in no case should the woman going through these situations be judged. It usually appears as feelings of sadness, irritability, difficulty falling asleep or extreme tiredness.
It is very important to attend to the mother's mental health and social well-being. Referral to a specialist may be advisable.
It is also important to involve the father, sexual partner or other companions, both in the care of the child and in supporting the mother.
The International Code of Substitutes consists of a set of recommendations aimed at regulating the aggressive and improper marketing of human milk substitutes, bottles and teats, which compete with breastfeeding.
In 1981, the 34th World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of Marketing of Human Milk Substitutes as a minimum requirement to protect and promote adequate feeding of infants and young children.