WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK 2022

The Florida Department of Health in Monroe County recognizes World Breastfeeding Week 2022

Monroe County, Fl.— The Florida Department of Health in Monroe County (DOH-Monroe), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the Florida Keys Healthy Start Coalition are celebrating World Breastfeeding Week 2022 during August 1-7, 2022. This year’s theme is Step Up For Breastfeeding: Educate and Support.

The World Breastfeeding Week 2022 encourages everyone to support breastfeeding mothers, babies, and their families through creating a breastfeeding-friendly environment.

Breastfeeding ensures:

  • Good health and prevents malnutrition, including under and over nutrition. Breastfeeding has positive lifelong health effects on infants, children, and mothers such as lower incidence of respiratory infections and ear infections for infants and children and reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancer for mothers. Breastfeeding also reduces the risk of childhood overweight and obesity compared to formula feeding.
  • Food security even in times of crisis. Breastfeeding provides food security to infants from the very beginning of life, contributes to food security for the whole family, and ensures food security for babies even in times of household or widespread disasters, such as
  • Improved Economics and Reduced Inequalities. Breastfeeding can help break the cycle of poverty for families, which impacts hunger and malnutrition. Breastfeeding provides an equal start for everyone. With no additional burden on household income, breastfeeding is a low-cost way of feeding babies and contributes to poverty reduction. Breastfeeding can also reduce costs to the health care system and employers by decreasing costs of hospitalizations, medications, and reduced absenteeism.
  • A positive impact on the health of the planet in several ways:
    • Breastmilk is a sustainable and environmentally friendly
    • Breastfeeding is readily available without needing other
    • Breastmilk production does not require the use of energy for manufacturing and does not create waste or air pollution.

To protect breastfeeding:

  • Provide access to skilled breastfeeding counseling. Studies have shown that breastfeeding promotion interventions increase exclusive and any breastfeeding rates at 4-6 weeks and at 6 months. Breastfeeding counseling is available through WIC and the Florida Keys Healthy Start Coalition.
  • Encourage employers and communities to promote and protect breastfeeding, through posting signs “Breastfeeding Welcome Here” and providing private areas for breastfeeding if that is a breastfeeding family’s preference. The Florida Keys Healthy Start Coalition is available to help your business create an employee benefits policy for your work team.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for infants for the first year of life and beyond, with the addition of appropriate complementary foods when the infant is developmentally ready, around 6 months of age.

For more information about the Florida WIC program, call 1-800-342-3556 or visit www.FloridaWIC.org.  To learn more about breastfeeding initiatives in Florida, visit www.flbreastfeeding.org. For more information about local breastfeeding support and the breastfeeding-friendly workplace initiative, go to www.keyshealthystart.org/breastfeeding.

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