Breastfeeding saves lives

Breastfeeding is one of the most effective interventions for improving child survival, nutrition, and development. To put it simply, breastfeeding saves lives. Yet despite years of evidence, too many mothers still leave health facilities without the support they need to successfully breastfeed their babies. Data compiled by the Global Breastfeeding Collective shows that early initiation of breast feeding remains a challenge globally. Fewer than one in two newborns begin breastfeeding within an hour of birth, falling substantially below the international target of 70%.

This year's World Breastfeeding Week theme, Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life: Strengthen What Works, raises an important question: what does it really mean to strengthen what works?

It means moving beyond raising awareness to ensuring that every mother has access to proven, evidence-based breastfeeding support through strong health systems.

Strengthening Health Systems

We don't need to reinvent solutions. We need to strengthen and scale the approaches we already know improve breastfeeding outcomes. Approaches like the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) and its adaptation for primary health care facilities. Unlike many short-term projects, BFHI strengthens routine health services so that breastfeeding support becomes part of everyday care rather than an additional intervention.

More than three decades ago, WHO and UNICEF launched BFHI to encourage health facilities providing maternity and newborn services to implement the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, an evidence-based framework for protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding. Today, its core principles remain as relevant as ever. Breastfeeding outcomes improve when health workers are trained to provide consistent breastfeeding support, facilities adopt evidence-based policies, and mothers receive skilled counselling before, during, and after birth. Combined with community-based breastfeeding support, maternity protection, and policies that safeguard breastfeeding, Baby-friendly Health Facilities provide a strong foundation for helping mothers succeed.

The challenge today is not proving that these approaches work but ensuring they reach every mother and every newborn. Breastfeeding succeeds when mothers are supported and not left to navigate those first difficult days and weeks alone.Top of Form

Uganda and Cambodia show that scale is possible

Around the world, countries are demonstrating that scaling breastfeeding support is both achievable and sustainable.

In Uganda, the Ministry of Health alongside World Vision and development partners, expanded Baby-friendly accreditation across more than 100 health facilities. Instead of treating breastfeeding promotion as a standalone intervention, the initiative has been integrated into routine maternal and newborn health services, supported by health worker training, mentorship, quality improvement, and national standards.

In Cambodia, World Vision worked with government and partners to adapted the global Baby-friendly model to create Baby-friendly Health Centres. This locally tailored approach strengthened breastfeeding counselling, improved the quality of care provided by frontline health workers, and reinforced links between health facilities and communities. World Vision's experience in Cambodia shows that the principles of BFHI are flexible enough to work across different health systems while maintaining the same goal: ensuring that every mother receives skilled, compassionate support to breastfeed successfully.

While Uganda and Cambodia took different paths, reflecting their unique health systems and contexts, they reached the same conclusion: lasting improvements in breastfeeding depend on strengthening routine health services so every mother receives skilled, compassionate support.

From innovation to implementation

Development is often attracted to innovation. New pilots, tools, and technologies all have an important role to play. When it comes to breastfeeding, our greatest opportunity may not lie in discovering something new, but in scaling the approaches that have quietly been improving the lives of mothers and babies for decades.

This World Breastfeeding Week, let's strengthen what works, not by asking more of mothers, but by ensuring our health systems do more to support them. World Vision’s work in Uganda and Cambodia reminds us that this is possible. The next step is making proven approaches the standard of care, not the exception, so every mother receives the support she needs, and every child has the sustainable start in life they deserve.

By Loria Kulathungam, Health and Nutrition Knowledge Management and Capability Advisor, World Vision International, and World Vision representative to the Global Breastfeeding Collective

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