A survey sent to the Section on Breastfeeding, Section on Administration and Practice Management, and Section on Early Career Physicians reveled the below frequently asked questions about breastfeeding care.

Breastfeeding and human milk are the normative standards for infant feeding and nutrition. The short- and long-term medical and neurodevelopmental advantages of breastfeeding make breastfeeding or the provision of human milk a public health imperative. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for approximately 6 months after birth. Furthermore, the AAP supports continued breastfeeding, along with appropriate complementary foods introduced at about 6 months, as long as mutually desired by mother and child for 2 years or beyond. These recommendations are consistent with those of the World Health Organization (WHO).

For the best health outcomes, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for approximately 6 months followed by continued breastfeeding with complementary foods for at least 2 years and beyond as mutually desired.

In the 15 years since the adoption of the original Innocenti Declaration in 1990, remarkable progress has been made in improving infant and young child feeding practices worldwide.

Nevertheless, inappropriate feeding practices – sub-optimal or no breastfeeding and inadequate complementary feeding – remain the greatest threat to child health and survival globally. Improved breastfeeding alone could save the lives of more than 3,500 children every day, more than any other preventive intervention.

WHO and UNICEF jointly developed the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding to revitalize world attention to the impact that feeding practices have on the nutritional status, growth and development, health, and thus the very survival of infants and young children.

Parents at Work: Leave & Breastfeeding Breaks by Country is an advocacy tool developed by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) as part of the Empowering Parents Campaign (EPC). The EPC aims to promote social protection that will facilitate the integration of parents’ productive and reproductive work in both formal and informal sectors.
Family-supportive policies, that enable women to remain and progress in paid employment and encourage men to take their
fair share of care work, are crucial to achieving greater gender equality at work and at home. Decent work includes parental
social protection policies and legislation, public-funded paid leave and parent-friendly or family-friendly workplaces that help
transform social norms, protect workers from job discrimination and help achieve the balance in work and family life for all workers in line with several of the Sustainable Development Goals. τους.