The Gender Nutrition Gap is felt by women and girls every day in their homes, schools and workplaces. Women and girls’ unequal access to good nutrition affects their health, productivity, educational achievement and lifetime income.
But did you know that it can also prevent mothers from feeding their children the way that they want to?
Breastfeeding gives all children the healthiest start in life, promotes cognitive development, and acts as a baby’s first vaccine, providing critical protection from diseases. It also lowers maternal risk for breast cancer, ovarian cancer, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases. But many women who would like to breastfeed lack the support and information they need to be successful. In order to breastfeed successfully, mothers often require support from a range of individuals and systems including healthcare providers, lactation consultants, partners, families, workplaces, and governments.
Billions of women around the world are missing these crucial supports, and the gap means that only one in two babies in the world are exclusively breastfed for six months as recommended by the World Health Organization. At the country level, exclusive breastfeeding rates are often well below global targets.
The gender nutrition gap is complex, but the Action Agenda aims to make the solution clear. Here are some concrete solutions the Action Agenda recommends to help governments and donors promote, protect, and support breastfeeding:
Counter the aggressive marketing of the commercial milk formula industry, by:
– Incorporating the International Code of the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes Code (BMS Code) and its subsequent resolutions into national laws and regulations, monitoring national legal measures, and enforcing violations;
– Advocating for the BMS Call to Action;
– Implementing multi-channel social and behavior change interventions to ensure an enabling environment for breastfeeding that can counter the marketing of the commercial milk formula and baby food industry; and
– Preventing commercial influence on health care providers by training and supporting healthcare workers in infant and young child feeding, especially breastfeeding.
Support breastfeeding and nutrition, by:
– Expanding access to quality breastfeeding and infant and young child feeding counseling at health facilities and community-based services;
– Integrating essential nutrition interventions and nutrition counseling in antenatal care; and
– Developing or strengthening national policies and guidelines for infant and young child feeding in humanitarian contexts to protect breastfeeding in emergencies.
Provide support to mothers in paid employment, by:
– Adopting family-friendly policies in both formal and informal sectors, including maternity protection policies — paid maternity leave, paid breaks to breastfeed, and dedicated space to breastfeed/express milk — to support a mother’s ability to breastfeed.
Investing in breastfeeding is one of the ‘best buys’ a country can make. A $1 investment in breastfeeding yields $35 in economic returns in low- and middle-income countries. It reduces the burden of childhood and maternal illness, lowering health care costs, creating healthier families, and strengthening the development of nations. By giving women the information and resources they need to breastfeed successfully, they can be empowered to make an informed choice about how to feed their children.