It’s World Breastfeeding Week!

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action has designated this week, August 1 through 7, as World Breastfeeding Week. In conjunction with the 2008 Olympics, the theme this year is “Mother Support: Going for the Gold.”

Supporting Mothers to Provide the Golden Start for Every Child

Around the world this week, singly and in groups in 120 countries, peopleare affirming the importance of breastfeeding. The World Breastfeeding Weeksite “calls for greater support for mothers in achieving the gold standardof infant feeding.” WBW defines this as exclusive breastfeeding for theinfant’s first six months of life and continuing breastfeeding for up to twoyears of age or beyond, with appropriate complementary foods.

An Olympic Tie In

The Olympic games is an event in which athletes at the top of their gamecompete against each other to determine who is the best of the best. The WorldBreastfeeding Week site contends that these healthy athletes “can onlyemerge from a healthy start on life.” (It would certainly beinteresting to know what percentage of athletes was breastfed. Hmm. You know, Idoubt if any of the reporters there at the event would be confident enough toput the question to them. It’s fun to think about, though.)

The Virtual Torch Run

If you go to the WBW 2008 Virtual Torch Run page here, you’ll seea list of hundreds of organizations in well over 100 countries that havepledged their financial support to the efforts of the World Alliance forBreastfeeding Action (WABA), the organization behind World Breastfeeding Week.The torch run will continue through the end of the year, so there are sure tobe many more countries adding their “runners” to the list.

The Supporting Countries … So Far

You know, I was going to let it go at “well over 100 countries,” but I justcan’t. Take a look at this list, which is in no particular order, and you’llsee that people the world over support breastfeeding. If you or someone youknow is thinking about breastfeeding, just think: people around the world arerooting for you!

• Uganda
• Singapore
• Argentina
• Ukraine
• Nigeria
• Dominican Republic
• Pakistan
• Peru
• Brazil
• Australia
• United States of America
• United Kingdom
• Russia
• Mexico
• Zambia
• New Zealand
• India
• Belgium
• Puerto Rico
• Sri Lanka
• Nigeria
• Saudi Arabia
• Cameroon
• Bangladesh
• Indonesia
• France
• Guam
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Serbia
• Italy
• China
• Bulgaria
• Afghanistan
• Mauritius
• Iceland
• Fiji Islands (a LOT of sponsors)
• Canada
• Curacao
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Japan
• Thailand
• Oman
• Brazil
• Taiwan
• Columbia
• Angola
• Korea
• Greece
• Bermuda
• Spain
• Chile
• Croatia
• Iran
• Dominican Republic
• Gabon
• Indonesia
• Brunei
• Turkmenistan
• Venezuela
• Georgia
• Malaysia
• New Caledonia
• Belgium
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Senegal
• Togo

About WABA

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action(WABA) is a global network of individuals and organisations concerned with theprotection, promotion and support of breastfeeding worldwide. WABA action isbased on the Innocenti Declaration,the TenLinks for Nurturing the Future and the Global Strategyfor Infant & Young Child Feeding. Its core partners are IBFAN, LLLI, ILCA, WellstartInternational, and ABM. Find out more at the WABA website.

Laurel Haring is a writer and editor. She and her family live in Delaware.She was never much of an athlete, but despite only having two children and twobreasts, she put in nearly six years of breastfeeding Olympics. Boo-yah!

Photo of gold medal, copyright The World Alliance for BreastfeedingAction (WABA), on WorldBreastfeeding Week home page.

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