Category: Toolkit

Nourishing, surviving, and thriving with breastfeeding

Breastfeeding gives babies the very best start to life—and benefits that reach far into the future. Breastmilk is nature’s perfect first food, tailor-made for babies providing all the nutrition including vitamins, proteins and fats that they need for the first six months of life. It also acts as a baby’s first vaccine, protecting them from common childhood illnesses.

Despite all the great benefits, both globally and across the United States, breastfeeding rates are low, risking malnutrition and disease for both mothers and babies.

As World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month begin, 1,000 Days celebrates the progress made to support families in breastfeeding their babies, while also recognizing the additional steps that need to be taken to truly support all those who chose to initiate and sustain breastfeeding.

This year, the theme for World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-7) is Closing the Gap: Breastfeeding Support for All. Globally, breastfeeding rates have increased by 10 percentage points over the past decade to 48%, nearly reaching the World Health Assembly target of 50% by 2025. However, despite the increase, wide discrepancies remain between individual countries; in some places, rates remain as low as 20%. The consequences of not breastfeeding can be deadly and lead to mass financial loss. Nearly 500,000 children and nearly 100,000 women die each year due to inadequate breastfeeding. These preventable deaths, combined with cognitive losses, and health system costs of inadequate breastfeeding leads to over US$570 billion in economic losses annually.

Here in the United States, most babies start out being breastfed, but the rates drop quickly and suddenly a few months into life when mothers return to work. Only 1 in 4 American babies is exclusively breastfed at six months of age, due in no small part to workplace barriers and a lack of paid maternity leave. We join with National Breastfeeding Month organizers the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee to honor the incredible work that organizations across the country are doing to make the world a little more friendly for new parents and families, and celebrate the following observances across the month:

We welcome you to join us this month to shine a light on why protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding is so important. You can find our 2024 Inspiration Guide, featuring social media messaging and graphics, here.

Follow along on our Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram all month long!

Our favorite time of year: #March4Nutrition

Our favorite time of year: #March4Nutrition

We’re thrilled to celebrate the 50th anniversary of National Nutrition Month in March 2023. Developed by our friends and colleagues at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, every March we work especially to amplify the importance of nutrition for families in the first 1,000 days: the time between pregnancy and a baby’s second birthday.

Throughout pregnancy, infancy and beyond, families need good nutrition, breastfeeding support, and nurturing care in order to thrive. Backed by decades of research and most recently the American Journal of Public Health’s special nutrition series, we know nutrition plays a foundational role in a child’s development and her country’s ability to prosper.

We invite you to follow #March4Nutrition on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all month long and join the conversation. Every week in March, we’ll dive deep into a new theme and explore how nutrition lays the foundation for brighter, healthier futures.

Week 1 March 1-10: Women’s nutrition – Access to proper nutrition can help women grow their power.

Week 2 March 13-17: Benefits of breastfeeding – Breastfeeding has critical benefits for both moms and babies.

Week 3 March 20-24: Healthy foods and drinks for babies and toddlers – Growing babies need good nutrition to flourish.

Week 4 March 27-31: Raise your voices – Help us spark action to change the world for moms, babies and families, 1,000 days at a time.

At 1,000 Days, we believe that every family, everywhere deserves the opportunity to have a healthy 1,000-day window and beyond – and that starts with access to good nutrition.

Join us this month as we #March4Nutrition for moms and babies!