Breastfeeding is central to key elements of humanity; the lasting health of our species and of our planet.
If you are a human, were once a baby, intend to become a parent at some point, or just happen to sit next to a mother breastfeeding in a cafe one day, then you're involved too.
An estimated 823,000 infants die globally each year because they are not being breastfed and protected by the components in human milk, alongside 20,000 women who would survive breast cancer.
For women, low breastfeeding rates are also associated with an increase in reproductive cancers, heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, and postnatal depression.
From the planet's perspective, in the UK alone, carbon emission savings gained by supporting mothers who want to breastfeed would equate to taking between 50,000 and 77,500 cars off the road each year.
Breastfeeding is increasingly being positioned as both a public health and a climate justice issue. Women are passionate about breastfeeding with good reason. Yet the responsibility must not rest on individual mothers.
"The lack of political leadership and funding for breastfeeding is a missed opportunity to improve health and economic outcomes. With the right level of investment and commitment from policy makers we can transform global health." The Lancet 2017.
In the UK, of the 85% of new mothers who want to breastfeed, around 50% stop in the first 6 weeks, with 9 in 10 saying they didn't want to stop, but could not find the help they needed to overcome the initial challenges they were facing.
In China, where only 21% of infants are exclusively breastfed for 6 months, inadequate breastfeeding is associated with economic losses of US$66 billion per year, driven by costs associated with lower cognitive capacity and maternal and child deaths.
With knowledgeable help and an environment that understands and welcomes breastfeeding, almost every mother would succeed at her own breastfeeding goals, and those who cannot would have access to donor milk.
Together, we can change all that.
(Image: Our composition of human milk infographic.)