World Breastfeeding Week 2023: Date, Theme, Significance and History: Every year, World nursing Week is commemorated to emphasise the need of frequent nursing for babies. This year’s nursing week begins on August 1 and ends on August 7. Breastfeeding is extremely crucial for the healthy growth and development of an infant. Breastmilk is the best food for newborn babies. It contains antibodies that aid in preventing several prevalent paediatric ailments.
Daily Current Affairs Quiz: August 2023
Breastfeeding is one of the most effective strategies to ensure child health and survival, according to the World Health Organisation, but now, less than half of newborns under 6 months old are exclusively breastfed. WHO, UNICEF, and numerous Ministries of Health and civil society partners promote the World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) campaign. In 2018, a World Health Assembly resolution endorsed World Breastfeeding Week as an important health promotion strategy, according to the information on the WHO website.
Theme for World Breastfeeding Week 2023
This year’s theme “Let’s make breastfeeding and work, work!” will focus on breastfeeding and work, providing a strategic opportunity to advocate for essential maternity rights that support breastfeeding – maternity leave for a minimum of 18 weeks, ideally more than 6 months, and workplace accommodations after this point.
Significance for World Breastfeeding Week
With a different theme each year, World Breastfeeding Week aims to promote the enabling environments that help women to breastfeed – including support in the community and the workplace, with adequate protections in government policies and laws – as well as sharing information on breastfeeding benefits and strategies, according to the global health body.
According to WHO, national laws do not provide necessary maternity protections to more than half a billion working women. Just 20% of countries require employers to provide employees with paid breaks and facilities for breastfeeding or expressing milk. Fewer than half of infants under 6 months of age are exclusively breastfed.
History World Breastfeeding Week
As per World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, World Breastfeeding Week was started in 1992. The week is celebrated in commemoration of the 1990 Innocenti Declaration. The Innocenti Declaration was produced and adopted by participants at the WHO/UNICEF policymakers’ meeting on “Breastfeeding in the 1990s: A Global Initiative”, co-sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) and the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA), held at the Spedale degli Innocenti, Florence, Italy, on 30 July- 1 August 1990.
