Around 13% of deaths in children under five are attributed to poor breastfeeding practices. Despite immense work done in promoting breastfeeding as a “best practice” for child development, no country in the world fully meets recommended standards and six-month continuation rates remain low in most countries.
In the world’s largest emerging economies (China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria), lack of investment in breastfeeding results in an estimated 236,000 child deaths per year and US$119 billion in economic losses. In India, only 65% of children are exclusively breastfed for the first six months. While the Indian government pushes for institutional deliveries (around 79% in the country), breastfeeding is initiated within one hour of birth in only 45% of cases.
Breastfeeding exclusively for six months depends on mothers carrying out very specific behaviors (i.e. initiation in the first few hours of birth and regular feeding every 3-4 hours in the initial hours and weeks) - by failing mothers and babies at this critical time, we fail to leverage one of the most natural and cost-effective interventions for child survival, while alternative behaviors (e.g. bottle or formula feeding) end up having more appeal to the individual than life-saving practices.
