Devex: Breast milk for newborns: A key to sustainable development
Leith Greenslade, chair of the Breastfeeding Innovations Team

“…[World Breastfeeding Week] is the time for all global and national health authorities to acknowledge that optimal access to breast milk for sick and vulnerable newborns is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially ending child malnutrition (Goal 2) and reducing newborn deaths and deaths from noncommunicable diseases (Goal 3). … If I had one wish for this week, it is that authorities would announce the world’s first independent assessment of how sick and vulnerable newborns are being fed across several populations with the highest rates of newborn death, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. … Ultimately, however, little will change until governments set ambitious goals for optimal feeding of sick and vulnerable newborns and invest in programs that make sure these babies have access to the most lifesaving — and too often the only — ‘medicine’ available: breast milk” (8/1).