World Breastfeeding Week

Breastfeeding Week will be celebrated August 1-7, with the theme "Breastfeeding: The Best Investment," by Le Leche League International and the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA).

World Breastfeeding Week is part of WABA's ongoing campaign to increase public awareness of the importance of breastfeeding. La Leche League is a founding member of WABA's global alliance of health-care providers, nongovernmental organizations, and mother-support groups.

August 1 marks the eighth anniversary of the signing of the Innocenti Declaration on the Protection, Promotion, and Support of Breastfeeding. The Declaration--adopted in 1990 by thirty-two governments--recognizes the importance of breastfeeding to infant and maternal health, as well as the social, economic and ecological benefits it provides to the family and society. Le Leche League International is a nonprofit organization that provides breastfeeding information and encouragement through mother-to-mother support groups and interaction with parents, physicians, researchers, and health-care providers, and reaches over 200,000 women in sixty-six countries.