Today, we join the global community in observing World Breastfeeding Protection Day 2025, under the theme: “Protect Breastfeeding: For My Rights, No Misleading Digital Marketing.”
Breastfeeding is not only a personal choice but a public health priority. The evidence is clear: breastfed babies receive the best start in life. Breastfeeding is a powerful, natural intervention that supports child survival, strengthens maternal health, and enhances national development.
Yet, across the world, including here in Guyana, many infants and young children are not breastfed as recommended. According to the World Health Organisation, only 54% of infants are breastfed within the first hour after birth, 43% are exclusively breastfed during the first six months, and by age two, only 43% continue to be breastfed.
One of the leading challenges is the aggressive and often misleading marketing of breast-milk substitutes, particularly in digital spaces. These tactics can undermine a mother’s confidence in her own ability to nourish her child and influence infant feeding decisions during the critical prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal periods.
In response, the World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes in 1991. Guyana is a proud signatory to this Code, which provides a global framework to protect families from commercial pressures and to ensure that health professionals act in the best interest of mothers and children. Importantly, this Code does not ban the sale or use of breast-milk substitutes, but restricts promotional practices that mislead or discourage breastfeeding.
As we commemorate this important day, I urge all stakeholders, health workers, parents, caregivers, policy-makers, and media personnel, to recognise that breastfeeding is everyone’s business. We each have a role to play in protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding across all communities.
Let us reaffirm our commitment to upholding the rights of mothers and children by ensuring they are given the best possible start in life free from misleading marketing, and surrounded by the support they need to breastfeed confidently and successfully.
Together, let us protect breastfeeding and ensure a healthier future for all.
