The World Breastfeeding Week, commemorated between August 1-7, is a campaign that aims at creating awareness about breastfeeding and its benefits.
This year's agenda is to strengthen the capacity of actors that have to protect, promote and support breastfeeding across different levels of society.
These actors are very important since they make up the chain of breastfeeding support.
Through these actors, mothers will be informed, educated and empowered to strengthen their capacity to provide and also sustain breastfeeding environments.
The health organizations recommend that all babies should be breastfed for the first six months followed by complementary foods for up to one or two years.
They also recommend mother care which improves neonatal survival.
However, breastfeeding mothers need to be supported to initiate breastfeeding as soon as possible immediately after delivery.
They should receive practical support to enable them to initiate, establish and also know how to manage difficulties.
Breastfeeding counselling is the key to solving breastfeeding difficulties.
Improving the access to counselling for breastfeeding can extend the duration of breastfeeding and promote exclusive breastfeeding with benefits for babies, families and economies.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, most breastfeeding mothers were majorly affected.
The healthcare services that support breastfeeding mothers are also the second most affected.
They all need to access skilled breastfeeding support.
Therefore, countries need to revamp the capacity of actors in a warm chain through education and also restore breastfeeding support systems to pre-pandemic levels to achieve the global nutrition targets 2025.
Migori
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
