Political Leadership, Funding For Breastfeeding Vital To Improving Global Health

The Lancet: Breastfeeding: a missed opportunity for global health
Editorial Board

“No country in the world meets the recommended standards for economic investment and implementation of policies supporting mothers to breastfeed. These are the stark findings of a new report, released on Aug 1, 2017, to mark World Breastfeeding Week. … Breastfeeding offers children and mothers unrivaled health benefits. As outlined in the 2016 Lancet Series on breastfeeding, 823,000 child deaths and 20,000 maternal deaths each year could be prevented by scaling up breastfeeding. Additionally, in Nurturing the Health and Wealth of Nations, the Global Breastfeeding Collective lays out the economic penalties of a failure to invest in breastfeeding. … The lack of political leadership and funding for breastfeeding is a missed opportunity to improve health and economic outcomes. With the right level of investment and commitment from policy makers we can transform global health” (8/5).

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

KFF Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone 202-347-5270

www.kff.org | Email Alerts: kff.org/email | facebook.com/KFF | twitter.com/kff

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news, KFF is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.