Breastfeeding Support and Promotion Programs

Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is recognized as the best infant feeding practice for enhancing child survival, growth, and development. Exclusive breastfeeding protects against diarrhea by eliminating the infant’s exposure to waterborne pathogens. It also provides protective antibodies against other diseases.

Because of this effect, breastfeeding annually prevents an estimated 6 million infant deaths from infectious diseases alone. In developing countries, breastfeeding is recommended for up to two years - this practice would prevent many more of the estimated 9 million infant deaths that occur globally each year. With carefully informed decision making appropriate to local circumstances, breastfeeding can also reduce HIV transmission from mothers to infants.

Learn more about mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Exclusive breastfeeding also promotes child spacing and thus improves maternal and reproductive health. Full breastfeeding provides mothers with natural contraception during the first six postpartum months. Lactational amenorrhea (the absence of menses resulting from full breastfeeding) prevents another pregnancy from occurring during this period.

Benefits of Breastfeeding

Initial Immunization. Breast milk, especially the first milk (colostrum), contains antibacterial and antiviral agents that protect the infant against disease. Breast milk also helps the infant's own immune system develop.

Diarrhea Prevention. Diarrhea is the leading cause of death among infants in developing countries. Infants under 2 months of age who are not breastfed are 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea than infants who are exclusively breastfed. Continued breastfeeding when an infant has diarrhea reduces dehydration, the severity and duration of diarrhea, and its negative nutritional consequences.

Learn more about USAID's strategy for control of Childhood Diarrheal Disease (CDD).

Food Security. Breast milk provides total food security for an infant’s first six months. It maximizes food resources, both because it is naturally renewing and because food that would otherwise be fed to an infant can be given to others. A mother’s milk supply adjusts to demand; only extremely malnourished mothers have a reduced capacity to breastfeed.

Mother-Child Bonding. Breastfeeding provides physiological and psychological benefits for both mother and child. It creates emotional bonds and has been known to reduce rates of infant abandonment.

Birth Spacing. In developing countries, exclusive breastfeeding reduces total potential fertility as much as all other modern contraceptive methods combined.

Maternal Health. Breastfeeding reduces the mother's risk of fatal postpartum hemorrhage, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and anemia. By spacing births, breastfeeding allows the mother to recuperate before she conceives again.

Learn more about USAID's Maternal Health Programs.

USAID Breastfeeding Programs

USAID’s breastfeeding program strategies promote breastfeeding and optimal feeding practices related to weaning and introducing complementary foods. Strategies and interventions are tailored to specific cultural and regional practices and aim to counter cultural practices that discourage optimal feeding practices.

USAID program activities have included:

• Providing technical assistance in 34 countries for breastfeeding programming, social marketing, support networks, and policy guidance
• Supporting national assessments in 15 countries to help plan and develop country program activities
• Providing technical assistance to health practitioners on educating mothers about breastfeeding, complementary feeding, and child health
• Developing national and regional breastfeeding programs and centers and integrating them with other programs in maternal/child and reproductive health
• Conducting groundbreaking research that has that led to the recognition of breastfeeding’s many positive effects on mothers and infants and to the use of lactational amenorrhea for birth spacing

USAID's Key Achievements in Breastfeeding Support and Promotion

• Exclusive breastfeeding in Madagascar increased from 46 percent of mothers in January 2000 to 71 percent by the end of 2001, after nutrition programs, reproductive health programs, and the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness initiative began promoting it. The greatest improvements occurred among 4- to 5-month-old infants, indicating that mothers are willing to continue exclusive breastfeeding through the recommended six-month period.
• To reduce the risk of transmitting HIV infection through breast milk, USAID-supported partners in Zambia collaborate with district health management teams and other local partners in clinic- and community-based maternal and child health services. Trained counselors provide mothers with information so they can weigh the risks and benefits of different feeding options and choose the safest strategy for their situation. Mixed feeding of breast milk and other liquids or foods during the infant’s first six months (which carries the highest risk of HIV transmission) declined in the program area, while exclusive breastfeeding of infants less than 6 months old increased from 57 to 69 percent. Initiation of breastfeeding in the first hour after birth increased from 59 to 83 percent.

Learn more about USAID's efforts to Prevent Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV.